


Love and a Hard Place

by undun



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Infidelity, Kidfic, M/M, Romance, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-25
Updated: 2012-02-25
Packaged: 2017-10-31 18:00:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 19,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/undun/pseuds/undun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>lupin_snape (Insane Journal Asylum) Family Fest.</p><p>...Remus Lupin would do anything to be a father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta by Dillis.

I.  
  
"Why are you asking  _me?_ "  
  
Remus sighed.  
  
"I just explained, Severus. The curse renders me infertile. Werewolves can't breed the traditional way."  
  
"Yes, I know that, fool! I meant, why me?"  
  
"You, in particular?" Remus asked, eyebrows rising. He'd thought Snape would have jumped at the chance to cuckold him with his permission. Another humiliation to chalk up.  
  
 _"Yes!"_  
  
"Well, strangely enough, I respect you," he murmured uncomfortably. At this, a strange sound escaped Snape. "I do, really!" Remus asserted.  
  
"And your... partner? I'm quite sure she could not be accused of harbouring any tender feelings for me."  
  
"Well, no. She doesn't," Remus confirmed, dropping his gaze.  
  
"So?"  
  
"So...” Remus looked away from Snape, studying the floor as if it was suddenly the most interesting phenomenon he'd ever discovered. “Well, you were the compromise."   
  
"I'm the compromise," Snape repeated slowly.  
  
There was an imperative to answer the unspoken question.  
  
"Yes. I know that she'd… she won't be...” Remus waved his hand wordlessly for a moment. “I know that she won't fall in love with you in the process and leave me!" he finally confessed, almost shouting with the release of pent up frustration, anger and embarrassment.  
  
"I see."  
  
The quiet acknowledgement unnerved him. Remus crossed his arms defensively.  
  
"It wasn't a good idea, coming here," he muttered, remnants of hurt and anger threading through his voice. Silence followed. Remus could hear a rat scurrying inside the wainscoting. Full moon tomorrow night.  
  
"Will you be present for the act?"  
  
Remus’ eyes flicked up to look at Snape's face. He couldn't be really suggesting...? Surely not!  
  
"Um, I didn't actually plan that far," he admitted.  
  
"And yet you came here as part of a plan to have a child with her. The traditional way."  
  
There was a hint of mockery in the statement, but for Snape it was almost friendly.  
  
"I suppose I could be a sort of witness, if that's what you want," Remus ventured, mind boggling at the thought of... _watching._  
  
"In that case, I'll do it," Snape stated tersely.  
  
Remus' mind went perfectly blank.  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
“It didn’t take,” Remus said.  
  
“What?” Snape looked up from a bubbling cauldron, his face outlined in purple.  
  
“She’s not pregnant.”  
  
Snape looked back to his potion, stirring with mechanical precision. “Really.”  
  
“Yes, really,” Remus said, huffing a breath.  
  
“And what exactly do you want me to do about it?” Snape queried with an abstracted air.  
  
“Try again, of course!”  
  
“Surely you jest?”  
  
“No. Why would I joke about it? We want to have a baby and you said that you would help us.”  
  
“And what happens if, for instance, your partner in this venture is also infertile? How many times do you expect me to go through with this procedure, Lupin? Shall I move in?”  
  
Remus’ mind did a double take. Snape, in their bed, every night?  
  
“She isn’t infertile. We went to St. Mungo’s and she was tested.” It was all he could think of to refute Snape’s argument.  
  
With a great sigh, Snape moved his cauldron to a trivet and laid down his stirring rod.  
  
“One more performance is all I am willing to grant you, Lupin,” he announced.  
  
“Do you…?” Remus swallowed thickly. “Am I to attend as before?”  
  
Snape looked at him with a sneer. “Of course.”  
  
  
Later that night Snape's eyes met his and Remus felt his blood freeze and boil simultaneously; his face flush then drain of blood so rapidly he thought he would black out and slide senseless to the floor. He closed his eyes, desperate to preserve some dignity, though the notion was somehow ludicrous when watching someone who loathed him having intercourse with his wife.  
  
Even later that night he asked Tonks if it had felt okay to do that again with Snape. She snuggled against him, warm and muzzy-headed with post-coital fatigue. "Oh, yeah – he's bloody good at what he does is old Snape."  
  
 _Old Snape_. He hadn't looked even slightly old to Remus. He'd looked dangerous. He'd looked graceful, powerful, desirable...  
  
... and knowing.  
  
 _Merlin!_  
  
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	2. Chapter 2

II.  
  
“Permit me to guess,” Snape drawled at him as he opened the door. “It didn’t take,” he finished as he sat down behind his desk.  
  
“No, it didn’t,” Remus confirmed, crossing his arms and gazing back. It had been a strained fortnight at home: odd little disagreements and festering resentments for which he’d had no ready remedies.  
  
“You’ll have to find someone else to service her, Lupin. I’ve hung up my cock,” Snape said, his lip curled up on one side.  
  
“Why did you do it?” Remus asked.  
  
He wasn’t here about their efforts to have a child. The way things stood right now he wasn’t sure they’d be together to raise it. Remus was here to ask a question he’d been in too much of a hurry to ask at the beginning. And he really should have asked it then, before the events of those two nights took place. Before he’d sat there and watched Snape…  
  
“It amused me the first time, fucking your little lady, and I use the term loosely – as I’m sure she does herself – while you watched. While you  _let_  me, Lupin, while you practically  _begged_  me to. The second time…? Well, I was weak. And you did plead so beautifully.”  
  
Remus took a deep, shuddering breath.  
  
“You’re a bastard,” he stated in flat, cold voice.  
  
“But you respect me, Lupin. You told me so yourself,” Snape responded in mock hurt. “Do you mean to say that you lied to me?”  
  
“I never lied to you. I did respect you. And now I despise you!”  
  
“Careful, my dear werewolf – your temper is rising and we don’t want that, do we?” Snape hissed as he rose from his chair, moving slowly towards him.  
  
Remus took a careful, slow breath. Much as he hated Snape right now, he was right; he had to control the wolf that was rising underneath his skin. The subjects of claiming and mating were guaranteed triggers for aggression at this point in the month.  
  
“You treated this whole situation as a game,” he insisted quietly, a temporary calm restored.  
  
“Why shouldn’t I? I’m not attached to either of you. I was to be the ‘anonymous donor’ as the muggles so charmingly phrase it. I should derive some pleasure for my services. Some amusement at least,” Snape said with an elegant shrug. He perched on the edge of the desk in front of Remus.  
  
Remus struggled not to step back; he was not going to give ground. This was a non-verbal addition to their conversation and he would not be intimidated.  
  
“Well I hope you’ve had your fun, Severus. I hope that you can enjoy a good laugh at our difficulties,” he stated with as much dignity as he could muster.  
  
“I must admit to it having been an illuminating experience,” Snape replied, nodding slowly.  
  
“Illuminating?” Remus couldn’t help his curiosity.  
  
“Indeed. The way you spent each of those evenings watching me rather than your wife was very illuminating,” Snape answered with a smirk.  
  
“What? I never… bloody hell! What exactly are you implying?” Remus spluttered.  
  
“You didn’t want me to fuck your wife, Lupin. You wanted me to fuck  _you._ ”  
  
There was a moment of silence in which Remus’ shock rendered him mute, and then–  
  
"No, you're wrong! Just watching doesn't mean wanting, Severus. I'll admit I was curious, but I've never wanted to have sex with another man!"  
  
"Is that so?"  
  
Remus watched as Snape twirled his wand in his fingers. When had he picked it up? At the same moment it occurred to him that he should perhaps be a little concerned, Snape snapped his wrist in a sharp movement and Remus found himself bound. He fought to keep his balance; his legs weren't tied but Snape had added a Sticky Shoes hex and he couldn't move his feet.  
  
"What the hell are you doing!" he shouted, knowing that struggling against magical ropes never, ever did any good, but helpless to stop the impulse to do just that.  
  
"Calm down, Lupin," Snape replied smoothly. "Think of it as a little experiment. I shan't harm you."  
  
"What? What are you going to do?" Remus panted. Sweat broke out all over his body. It wasn't the only unwanted reaction.  _Oh, no!_  
  
Snape continued, "You assert that you've never wanted to have sex with a man, and you believe that watching me with the former Miss Tonks was simply an act of curiosity on your part?"  
  
Remus nodded dumbly, horror blooming in his mind. What was he going to do?  
  
Snape leaned into him, his next words whispering into his ear. "I believe you're mistaken."  
  
"No," Remus whispered back. It less a denial of Snape's statement than a simple rejection of what was about to happen. "Don't," he added, his voice strangely weak.  
  
Snape's hands shoved at his coat, found the buttons to Remus’ trousers, and flew down them without preamble. "Time for the truth, Lupin," Snape murmured, lips crooking into a smirk.  
  
"No, no!" Remus couldn't seem to catch his breath. He struggled to stay upright and attempt to pull away from Snape at the same time. He had nowhere to go. "No, this is assault!" Remus shouted, finding volume at last.  
  
Snape snorted and looked up from his task. Remus refused to look down. He knew his arousal was evident, had sprung loose as soon as Snape had unbuttoned him.  
  
The crooked smile had faded from Snape's face as their eyes met and held.  
  
"You want me, but you don't want me to do this. Why?"  
  
Remus closed his eyes – he couldn't meet Snape's gaze any longer.  
  
"Why do you cling so desperately to this denial?"  
  
Remus felt the words trickle along his neck, up to his ear, the question punctuated with a tongue. Some hybrid sound between a sob and cough fought its way out of his chest, burning his throat. Tears gathered behind his eyelids.  
  
"Lupin, don't..."  
  
The bonds disappeared from Remus’ arms, and, as his feet were suddenly freed, he pitched forward.  
  
Snape caught him around the shoulders. "Remus," he hissed.  
  
His eyes flew open in surprise. Snape blurred darkly in front of him, hardly a hand's breadth between them.  
  
"Fuck!"  
  
His mouth met Snape's with uncomfortable force. There were long moments spent kissing each other better. Remus pulled back, panting, to say–  
  
"I'm married."  
  
"I've slept with your wife, Lupin. I don't fucking care."  
  
"I've actually never done this before. That was the truth, Severus," he said, still trying to avert disaster. Although, maybe it was too late now and he should simply accept that they were going down in flames.  
  
"You've been given a blow job before, haven't you?"  
  
"Yes," Remus replied. Tonks was wonderfully athletic. And rather adventurous. But he'd never asked her for anything  _gay._  
  
"Well then," Snape said around a smirk, interrupting Remus' rambling, panicked thoughts. He knelt in front of Remus, and of course his face was then on a level with…  
  
"Ah, God!"  
  
There was no fiddling about with Snape, he just got right down to business.  
  
Bowed over with his hands braced on the desk behind Snape, Remus assumed the crash position.  
  
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	3. Chapter 3

III.  
  
Remus entered their house quietly. It wasn't going to do him any good; she always waited up for him, only lately she'd waited with a disappointed frown rather than a tired smile.  
  
"Hello," he greeted her weakly.  
  
"You went to see Snape."  
  
"Er, yes, as it happens," he confirmed. There was a trap closing around him and for the life of him he couldn't figure out how to avoid it.  
  
"Why, Remus?"  
  
Well, because, you know..." Remus gestured between the two of them. "You  _know_  – baby, and all that."  
  
"You didn't ask me about it first. What happens if I've changed my mind, eh?"  
  
"Have you?"  
  
"We'll get to that. The point I'm making here is that you didn't  _consult_  me before you left to arrange another bonking for me from Snape."  
  
"Ah. Sorry," he said, despite the fact that she was operating under a false assumption; he hadn't gone to Snape to arrange another bonking for  _her._  
  
"So?"  
  
"So... what?"  
  
"What did he say? Honestly, Remus! What is wrong with you lately?"  
  
"Oh, right! Well, he won't do it again, but I suppose he did warn me last time that there wasn't going to be a third time," he supplied, hoping he wouldn't have to answer the second, and hopefully rhetorical, question.  
  
Tonks huffed a sigh. "Ah, well. That's it then."  
  
"What do you mean?" he asked with a sinking feeling.  
  
She shrugged eloquently. "No kids for us."  
  
"There are other ways, Tonks! We don't have to give up yet, surely?"  
  
Remus moved closer to her in agitation. His feelings were confused, ambivalent. On the one hand he did very much want to be a father, yet he wasn't sure now whether he wanted to be parenting with Tonks. But who else could he have a family with?  
  
Playing like a silent film in back of his mind was Snape's mouth sliding up and down on his erection, his black eyes flicking up with an expression of mocking heat that he suspected only Snape could accomplish. With a superhuman effort of will power, he banished the images from behind his eyes. The damage had been done, however.  
  
"You were gone a long time if Snape just said no," she observed shrewdly.  
  
Remus turned and moved towards the kettle, making a lot of noise with taps and lids as he responded.  
  
"Well, we chatted for a bit."  
  
"Chatted? With Snape? He doesn't  _chat_ , Remus." Her eyes narrowed.  
  
"Um, well, I've known him a long time. And I suppose he talks more to me than to someone like you," he said, desperately trying to shore up his defenses any way he could.  
  
"Someone like me? What does that mean?"  
  
 _Oh, shit._  
  
"Well, young. You're young. And beautiful," Remus added in a bid to sidetrack her.  
  
"Remus…"  
  
He dropped everything, stepped up to her chair and said, "Let's go fuck."  
  
"Remus!"  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
Tonks was splayed out like a starfish on the bed when he entered the bedroom after a quick shower to remove the taint of Severus Snape from his pores. Remus turned her over, onto her stomach.  
  
“What are you doing?”  
  
“I want to do it this way. Do you mind?” he asked, stroking his hand down her back to rest on her small bottom.  
  
“No, it’s fine. Bit nasty actually. Sort of like the idea,” she replied.  
  
He smiled and stroked his fingers into her cleft.  _Nasty!_  He was fast developing a taste for Nasty. He groped in a drawer for the seldom-used lubricant.  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
Remus stared up at the ceiling, watching flickering reflections from the clouds passing over the moon outside. He would have to start dosing with Wolfsbane potion tomorrow; only three days until the full. He had a convenient excuse for his aggressive libido at the moment, but he knew it wasn’t the pull of the wolf that had him sodomising his wife that night. It was Snape.  
  
Tonks snuffled into his chest and he gently eased out from under her sleeping body. He needed to put space between them and just try and think his way through this mess. He sat on the edge of the bed, shivering without the blankets between his skin and the cooling night air.  
  
His thoughts kept spinning in circles, trying to get out of the rat’s maze in his head. What the bloody hell was he going to do? He had a good marriage, or he’d had a good marriage before all this shite about having a baby the traditional way had come up. Why wouldn’t she let them use a potion, or some other magical technique? In his more paranoid moments he wondered if she had engineered the whole situation in order to get him to this point. Maybe she wanted a divorce from the start. Maybe she wanted him to get jealous; have him feeling so betrayed that he would leave her. If that had been her plan then it had succeeded in unexpected ways. He wasn’t jealous, he didn’t feel sexually betrayed, but he did think that their marriage was turning into a hollow farce.  
  
Maybe it had never been anything else.  
  
Maybe he’d been right all along; he wasn’t too poor anymore, but he was still too old, too dangerous. He loved Tonks, but it didn’t seem that they met each other’s needs anymore. He couldn’t give her a child, and she…?  
  
She wasn’t Snape.  
  
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	4. Chapter 4

IV.  
  
"Lupin," Snape greeted him without inflection. He stepped back, allowing Remus to enter the house.  
  
Remus stepped slowly past him with a fleeting feeling of unease; he couldn't remember the last time Snape had acknowledged his presence with anything other than sarcasm, annoyance, or a crippling combination of both.  
  
Snape closed the door, throwing the interior into gloom, the high, small windows doing nothing to help the watery daylight penetrate inside. Remus turned towards Snape.  
  
"I'm not a homosexual." It had been preying on his mind and he simply had to make the statement. He needed Snape to understand; he hadn't been living a lie with Tonks: he’d been living his  _life._  
  
Snape seemed well able to handle the blunt declaration. With no time taken to marshal his argument, he responded.  
  
"Is the label so important to you? You desire me and I confess to... some attraction to you. Is that not enough?"  
  
"It is important! At least, it is to me. I'm trying to understand what has happened to me, Severus," Remus answered. He dragged his hands through his hair.  
  
I think you'd better sit down before you break something," Snape suggested without humour.  
  
"I've never had these feelings before," Remus sighed, sinking onto Snape's dusty sofa. "I've no idea who and what I am anymore."  
  
"Oh, for Merlin's sake, Lupin! You are the same as you always have been; irritatingly polite, the caring do-gooder, a door mat whose only lapse in self-inflicted martyrdom comes once a month at the full moon."  
  
Snape breathed heavily, folding his arms. Remus blinked up at him.  
  
"You seek to please others before ever think to please yourself, Lupin," the man snapped.  
  
Remus gazed at the dirty window, the world beyond it veiled and obscure.  
  
"You think... Do you mean that I've been suppressing my own needs, my own desires? That I've been doing that for so long that I've forgotten I ever had them?" Remus asked. He couldn't look at Snape after those words, but he saw the man shrug out of the corner of his eye.  
  
"Suppression isn't really successful unless one dupes oneself as well as everybody else, Lupin."  
  
Remus sighed and hung his head, splaying his hands over his face. He heard Snape move closer and a moment later he felt a touch on his bowed head, Snape's fingers sifting through his hair. He looked up in surprise. He hadn't known Snape was capable of such a tender gesture.  
  
The man froze under his scrutiny but didn't look away. His dark eyes seemed to glow: bereft of their usual mocking mask, they pulled Remus in. Remus stood, still holding Snape's gaze as he cupped the man's face between his hands.  
  
"Take me to bed," he whispered. His lips met Snape's in a tickling kiss.  
  
Snape pulled back an inch to say, "At this point, I defy the late Lord Voldemort himself to stop me."  
  
Remus found himself firmly manhandled into a large, dim room at the top of the stairs, his clothes efficiently removed, and his body spread on Snape's large, wrought iron bed. Snape leaned over him. He seemed slightly unsure of himself as he asked, "I don't suppose you'd consider changing your command to 'take me  _in_  bed' by any chance?"  
  
He'd known intercourse was a possibility, of course, but his arse clenched with reflexive anxiety. He closed his eyes, avoiding Snape's intense and oddly vulnerable gaze. Visions of Snape thrusting against Tonks swam through his mind: the beautiful flex of bone and muscle under his pallid skin. With a lurch in his chest and an answering surge in his cock, he knew what he wanted, and he had the power to give Snape what  _he_  wanted without compromise to himself.  
  
He opened his eyes to see Snape studying his face, a frown deepening on his brow and the light in his eyes dimming. Remus smiled.  
  
"Severus, take me... in your bed."  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
“I had sex with Snape.”  
  
Tonks burst out laughing. After a minute she stopped and looked closely at Remus, dumping her pack on the table.  
  
“You’re serious.”  
  
He nodded with a feeling of unexpected calm after his confession.  
  
“He’s bent?” she asked, her mouth hung slightly open in shock.  
  
 _She’s not surprised about me?_  
  
“I don’t really know,” he answered numbly, calm disappearing like mist in sunlight.  
  
“Well I’d like to fucking know, Remus! I did have sex with him too, in case you’d forgotten!”  
  
Remus’ mind was reeling. Of the various reactions he’d thought Tonks would have to his confession, he hadn’t even considered this one as an outside possibility.  
  
“Is the label so important?” he asked, falling back on Snape’s question for lack of anything better to say.  
  
“Of course it’s bloody important! What the hell’s wrong with you, Remus?”  
  
Okay, this had gone on long enough.  
  
“Why are you more worried about Snape’s preference than my own infidelity?” he asked. “I had sex with him, Tonks! I was unfaithful to you.”  
  
She waved a hand dismissively. “So did I. Does that mean I was unfaithful to you?”  
  
Remus boggled briefly. She had a point. But, no!  
  
“That was a mutually consensual arrangement! Quite a different thing, Tonks.” Remus frowned, adding, “And I was there. You didn’t do anything behind my back.”  
  
“So what’s going on? Are  _you_  suddenly gay then?”  
  
Remus knew he had an answer for this, but now he couldn’t remember his carefully rehearsed reply.  
  
“I don’t know, Tonks,” he sighed. He looked down at the kitchen table, spreading his hands against the wood. “I don’t know myself at all right now, but I am attracted to him.”  
  
Tonks frowned at him across the table and folded her arms. He darted a look at her: she’d adopted her Auror demeanour.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Remus said quietly.  
  
“What about me then? I thought you loved me, Remus!”  
  
“I do!” he hastened to assure her. “I still do, but… I don’t know! Things have been a bit off since we involved Snape.” Remus hesitated, then, taking a breath, added, “Maybe before that. Maybe since we decided to have a baby.”  
  
“You don’t want children?”  
  
“I do! I want to be a father, but…” His breath huffed out in a rush. “Maybe it isn’t the best time for me right now,” he offered.  
  
“Bloody hell, Remus! We’ve been planning this for months! Why didn’t you say something?”  
  
Remus hung his head, dragging his fingers back through the tangle of his hair. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know ‘til, until I saw him… when I saw him with you… in bed. Something happened to me, and it only got stronger the second time.”  
  
He thought back to that second evening, when he’d met the heated, intense gaze that had him shivering as if in a fever. “He knew something. Snape knew what I was thinking,” he added.  
  
“He used legilimency on you!”  
  
He tried to remember what he’d felt. Had Snape seen inside his mind? How could he do that without a wand and, more to the point, while he was in the middle of having sex?  
  
“No, I don’t think so. I doubt even Snape could do that,” he responded after a moment. “I think he just knows me better than I know myself.”  
  
“Or better than I know you, apparently,” she commented with a frown.  
  
Remus shrugged. He had nothing to say to that.  
  
“He was the one who wanted you there when we fucked, Remus. He set us both up, didn’t he?”  
  
“I don’t know. I think it was a manipulation of the situation, but then we  _were_  using him for our own ends, Tonks.”  
  
“Yes, and look where it’s gotten us.”  
  
“Yeah,” he whispered in gloomy agreement.  
  
“I still love you, Remus,” she said softly.  
  
Remus tried to smile at her but his mouth twisted in what might have been a sick sneer.  
  
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	5. Chapter 5

V.  
  
“Any new personal insights today?” Snape greeted him when he slid into the seat opposite with his beer.  
  
He’d avoided Snape for some weeks, hoping for some clarification would present itself in his personal life. No such clarification had occurred, of course, and Remus was ready to admit he’d simply been avoiding dealing with the issue, that issue being one Severus Snape. Remus had arranged a meeting on neutral territory this time. Not having a conveniently placed bed would help to reduce distractions.  
  
“How are you?” he asked. He wasn’t going to let Snape bait him. They had proven they could communicate properly and he didn’t want Snape to retreat behind his well-rehearsed persona of Evil Git.  
  
“Tolerable,” Snape replied. “And yourself?”  
  
“As well as can be expected I suppose,” Remus answered, swigging his beer while he studied the man.  
  
Snape’s gaze had sharpened at Remus’ opening gambit. He took a mouthful of smoking spirits that swirled disconcertingly in the glass he held.  
  
“What the hell are you drinking?”  
  
“I don’t really know,” Snape held the concoction up to the light, squinting through the glass. “I believe it has an Absinthe base.”  
  
“Merlin’s pantyhose, Severus! That’s an hallucinogen,” he scolded.  
  
“That’s what, five syllables? And on a Friday too. Very impressive, Lupin.”  
  
Remus snorted. “Shut-up, it’s not a joke! Why are drinking that poison?”  
  
“I’m sorry, are you my mother using polyjuice to look like Remus Lupin?”  
  
That stopped him in his tracks. Since when did he go around checking Snape’s drinks? What business was it of his if the man wanted to commit slow suicide? Except…  
  
“I’ve never known you to take needless risks, Severus. Calculated risks, yes, or risks taken to protect your students. But you have always struck me as a man who would scorn unreasoned recklessness.”  
  
Snape placed his glass carefully back on to the tabletop.  
  
“Why did you ask me to meet you here?”  
  
It seemed like a complete non sequitur, but perhaps it was Snape’s round-about way of explaining himself.  
  
“I didn’t want anything to distract us from talking over this situation,” Remus explained, lowering his voice and leaning forward on his elbows. He didn’t see anyone he recognised, but he’d rather not be overheard. Happily, the crowd was increasing, and with that noise level their conversation would not likely carry further than their own table.  
  
“Do you mean,” Snape began deliberately, “that you don’t want me to  _fuck_  you tonight, Lupin?”  
  
The way he enunciated the word had Remus half hard in less that two seconds.  
  
“Shite,” he muttered, looking down at the table and flushing down to his neck.  _That wasn’t fucking fair!_  
  
“You look delectable, Lupin,” Snape continued. “You look hot and bothered and frustrated. You look like you want me to bend you over this table.”  
  
Remus squirmed uncomfortably. This wasn’t how he’d planned to have the evening go, dammit!  
  
“So, no sex?” Snape queried with mock innocence.  
  
Remus shook his head, not trusting his voice.  
  
“Ah. Cheers, then,” the man said, raising his glass once more.  
  
What?  
  
“I don’t mean never, Severus!” Remus objected. The bloody man couldn’t mean to drink himself stupid for lack of a bed mate for one bloody night, surely!  
  
“So there will be more… physical activities between us?”  
  
“Yes! I mean… actually that’s what I was hoping to discuss,” he replied.  _If only my fucking cock would allow me to think for longer than five seconds._  
  
“What, er, do you see us as being to each other?” Remus asked in a pathetic attempt to get the ball rolling.  
  
“What do you mean? You’re not looking for a relationship, are you? With me?”  
  
Snape’s voice was sheer disbelief with just a dash of cruel mockery.  
  
Remus shrugged, going for nonchalance but with the sinking feeling that it came off as embarrassment.  
  
“I’ve already had a relationship: well, it still is a relationship. If I wanted to, with a bit of hard work I’m sure I could hang onto it,” he answered. Remus paused to gather his thoughts and courage. “I don’t know what I could have with you, Severus, but to throw away my marriage in exchange for nothing more than fabulous sex seems just a little shallow. I won’t do it.”  
  
“That amounts to an ultimatum, I believe,” Snape commented, swigging at his glass with a hint of desperation in his eyes. “So, you think the sex is fabulous,” he added with a smirk.  
  
Remus had to stand firm.  
  
“I have a commitment to Tonks. I have nothing like that with you and I need to know if there is a possibility of it before I can decide what I have to do.”  
  
Snape looked down at the table before responding quietly. “I haven’t had a commitment to anybody since I was twenty, Lupin. I don’t know if I’m capable of such a thing anymore.” He looked up. “I know you well enough, I suppose,” Snape added, looking him over closely as if considering the purchase of slightly damaged goods.  
  
Remus’ heart rose up and nearly choked off his air.  _He’s actually considering the idea!_  
  
This would have to rate as the most bizarre situation he’d ever been in, and that was saying something. He fought to keep his head and not grin idiotically at the man opposite. The fact that he had seemingly made up his mind to throw in the towel on his marriage based on Snape’s brief conjecture was sobering.  
  
“I think what I need to do is move out and live by myself for a while, to make sure I’m doing the right thing.”  
  
Snape’s eyes glinted at him. He didn’t pick up his glass. “They have rooms upstairs.”  
  
Oh.  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
The large guest room had seen better days – it did, however, feature a robust-looking canopied bed against one wall. No matter how much mental gymnastics Remus went through he still felt that he was about to do the wrong thing, yet again. He turned to Snape with the vague notion of calling the evening off, and found his mouth had other plans. “Take your clothes off.”  
  
Snape’s eyebrow did the usual thing but he started unbuttoning. Committed now to the evening’s activities, Remus walked over to the bed and dragged the covers down, revealing an unexpectedly pristine white bed sheet. He quickly removed his own clothing while watching Snape dealing with a myriad of fastenings and layers.  
  
“Don’t you ever get hot under all that?” he asked, standing naked and watching Snape divest himself of the last pieces of his clothing.  _What is it that makes him so compelling?_  
  
“Cooling charm,” Snape returned matter-of-factly.  
  
 _Just to look good in black?_  
  
Snape was gloriously free of clothing now and Remus moved to stroke over the pale skin of his chest, brushing nipples and moving up to bite gently at the man’s neck. Snape gave a small shudder and a soft moan of appreciation then, unexpectedly, asked, “Do you want to fuck me tonight, Lupin?”  
  
Remus shivered: the way he said  _fuck_ … But, wait–  
  
“I thought you preferred to… do that.”  
  
“Why assume so much after so little?” Snape queried with a small smile that could have been mocking, but Remus was becoming desensitised and so it didn’t really have any impact.  
  
“Well, I won’t assume anything else, but tell me what you like to do, Severus. I need to know,” he responded. He softened his demand with small bites on the other side of Snape’s neck, aware that these attentions had aroused Snape considerably, his cock jutting into Remus’ abdomen.  
  
He pulled back slightly and saw Snape’s half closed eyes tracking him.  
  
“I like to do a lot of things. I’m versatile, Lupin,” came Snape’s belated reply, voice gravelled where it was normally silky smooth.  
  
Remus kissed him, teasing along the man’s lips with his tongue. He’d never done that with a man before, and after Snape had initiated him into the pleasures of being penetrated, he thought he could make it good for him. He was now hard enough to ‘cross swords’ with Snape where they stood facing each other. It prompted him to grasp the man’s arse and pull him against his hips, grinding instinctively against the man’s pelvis.  
  
“We’ll need some lubrication,” he panted, suddenly remembering that he’d had no intention of sleeping with Snape when he’d set up the meeting. He hoped that Snape hadn’t actually believed that he wouldn’t succumb and had come prepared for the event.  
  
There was a small huff, as of an aborted laugh, in his ear, which had in turn been in Snape’s teeth.  
  
“I’m sure I have something that will serve.”  
  
Remus sighed in relief. He would worry about the fact that Snape had no particular respect for his, admittedly shaky, principles much, much later.  
  
He laid Snape out on the bed, took the small bottle of emollient from the man’s trouser pocket, and proceeded to lose a different kind of virginity.  
  
He lay afterwards with his head not actually cushioned at all by Snape’s bony shoulder – honestly, he would have been better off with the lumpy pillow – and thought dazed thoughts about the zig-zagged progress of his personal life over the past few months. He stroked Snape’s light chest hair, blinking only when his eyes grew too dry to ignore. Snape’s hand closed firmly over his. His low, oddly musical voice instructed, “Sleep, Remus.”  
  
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	6. Chapter 6

VI.  
  
“You’re leaving me for Snape! I don’t understand, Remus!”  
  
He almost laughed. He didn’t understand it any better himself. Tonks was hurting though, and she’d done nothing to deserve this. She was a decent, honest witch, despite a slight tendency to selfishness which, in the Black family, was an unavoidable character trait. None of this was her fault.  
  
“I’m going to find somewhere to live by myself for now, Tonks,” he said. “I’m not running off to shack up with Severus.”  
  
“That doesn’t mean that you won’t eventually,” she protested.  
  
“No,” he admitted. “But I need to sort myself out before I start another relationship.”  
  
It was true, mostly. He was planning to spend some time living alone: he did need to ‘sort’ himself, but as far as the new relationship was concerned…? Well, that train had well and truly left the station. There was nothing he could do about that but keep a low profile and give Tonks time to adjust. It remained to be seen whether things with Snape would ever evolve into a domestic arrangement, but he was hopeful.  
  
He closed his trunk and moved over to where she stood just inside the doorway to their bedroom: his bedroom no longer, he thought, looking around at all the places where his belongings had been replaced by empty spaces. He hadn’t had much, but quite a few of his latest possessions had been gifts from Tonks.  
  
“I’m sorry for all of this,” he said quietly. “I must be mad.”  
  
She nodded jerkily and swiped at her eyes. Tears continued to trickle down her face but she was silent, staring into the room.  
  
Guilt: would Remus’ life ever be free of it? Probably not: he had so much to feel guilty about, after all. He’d felt it from such an early age too, from the time of Greyback’s attack, and his subsequent curse infection. After that it was guilt over doing nothing to spare Snape from the violent, and often humiliating, attentions of his school friends. Betraying Dumbledore’s trust in him by cavorting around with said school friends during the full moon was not his finest moment either. Then he’d believed one of those old friends to be a murdering Death Eater for twelve long years. As it turned out he’d believed it of the  _wrong_  old school friend, something he tried never to dwell on for too long: he was always afraid of being completely crushed by it. Then there was the narrowly averted disaster when he’d forgotten to take the Wolfsbane potion the night he’d met Sirius newly escaped from Azkaban and he’d almost eaten his students! And not being able to save Sirius the night he’d fallen through the Veil… He wished that he’d had more time with his old friend, and he treasured the short time they’d had together before Sirius’ death.  
  
And now he was letting Tonks down.  
  
It occurred to him that perhaps his relationship with Tonks might have been symptomatic of some that suppression that Snape had been talking about. Could Tonks have been his substitute for Sirius? Had he been having feelings other than friendship for Sirius when he was alive? He blinked and shook his head slightly. Sometimes thinking could be downright dangerous. He really needed to get out of his own head for a while, very soon.  
  
Tonks looked up at him.  
  
“I’ll be alright, Remus,” she said with only a slight warble in her voice.  
  
“I’m sure you will. But I do know that I’ve hurt you and I know it will take some time to repair the damage.”  
  
He slipped his wand out to reduce his trunk and put it in his pocket.  
  
“I want to keep our friendship, Tonks, but right now I think I’d better stay away. I’ll wait for you to contact me first. Of course, if you need me for any documents that need signing just owl me and I’ll be here as soon as I can.”  
  
She surprised him then by grabbing his waist in a bear hug, quick but passionate.  
  
“I love you, but I hate you, Remus.”  
  
He blinked at her, unable to think of a suitable response. In the end he touched her cheek in farewell, saying, “You’ve been good to me, and I’ll never forget that.”  
  
He began apparating, her bright hair turning into a swathe of pink before his eyes as he turned. Her voice came faintly, as if from miles away,  
  
“Goodbye, Remus!”  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
“Severus! I wasn’t expecting you,” Remus greeted the man with a bemused smile. He pulled the door wide and beckoned Snape inside.  
  
Snape stepped through the doorway. He looked around and sniffed.  
  
“This is a hovel, Lupin.”  
  
Remus laughed softly. “Yes, it really is, isn’t it? What brings you here, anyway?”  
  
“You owled me the address, what else did you expect me to do?”  
  
He quickly removed the stack of books and periodicals from the small sofa, gesturing with his eyes for Snape to take a seat while he stashed his armload in the corner. The pile promptly slid sideways and collapsed. He sighed.  
  
“Have I interrupted something?” Snape inquired with an arched brow, looking around at the mess.  
  
“Just my unpacking. I wish you’d let me know that you were coming over. I would have popped out to get some groceries. I don’t have anything to offer you for refreshment, I’m afraid.”  
  
“I brought wine.”  
  
Snape produced a miniaturised bottle from his pocket then waved his wand over it carefully to enlarge it to its original proportion.  
  
“I thought shrinking spells destroyed the quality of vintages!” Remus said in surprise.  
  
“They do. Unless you happen to have invented one that doesn’t,” Snape responded, a smug look appearing on his face.  
  
“You canny bastard,” Remus said in awe, taking the wine and using his wand to ease the cork from the bottle. He sniffed at the contents, closing his eyes in temporary bliss. “That’s extraordinary,” he uttered in admiration.  
  
Snape looked at him, a glint of humour showing in his eyes.  
  
“Really, Lupin, all this emotion over a bottle of good wine. You  _will_  be easy to keep happy.”  
  
Even more than the wine he held, that comment served to make Remus happier than he’d been for a long time. It didn’t make any sense: he thought he’d been happy with Tonks, but the longer he was away from her, and the more time he spent developing a relationship with Snape, the more obvious it seemed to him that he’d been playing a role with her. For a long time it had been a role he’d enjoyed, but it hadn’t really been him.  
  
He looked around. “Er, chipped teacups alright with you?” he asked, foraging in a partially unpacked trunk.  
  
“Why bother with the cups?” Snape returned, rising to take the bottle from his hands and taking a mouthful straight from the neck.  
  
Remus watched his Adam’s apple bob with fascination bordering on fetish. He adored the man’s neck, but the front of his throat in particular. He attributed it to watching Snape coming undone underneath him the first time he’d…  
  
Snape lowered the bottle and held it out to him while slowly swallowing his mouthful. Remus took the bottle from his hand as the man made a small smacking sound of satisfaction with his lips. “Good. Try it.”  
  
Remus grinned and brought the bottle to his own lips, filling his mouth with wine. He swirled the drink around his mouth, washing it over his palate. He swallowed as he met Snape’s eyes.  
  
“I’m in love,” he finally announced.  
  
Probably a bad choice of words, he reflected later: he hadn’t actually meant what Snape had assumed he’d meant.  
  
Snape closed in and kissed him. He kissed him passionately and long and Remus had to break away to catch his breath. Snape, panting and with a distinctly hungry look in his eyes, manoeuvred him onto the sofa. He hoped the bottle had found level ground somewhere because he no longer held it in his hand. Snape stripped him ruthlessly, nipping at his skin as it was exposed.  
  
“Slow down,” he pleaded. “Let me get your clothes off too.”  
  
Snape shifted upright and began taking his coat off – mercifully he’d come dressed in muggle clothes – and Remus tugged at his belt and trouser fastenings.  
  
“Your priorities are commendable,” Snape informed him just a little breathlessly as he was shrugging out of his shirt.  
  
“Mmm,” Remus responded around a mouthful of Snape’s left nipple. He gripped Snape’s prick in his right hand and began to masturbate him.  
  
Snape’s hands found their way to his head and played with the uncombed mess of hair there. He found his mouth being gently disengaged and then Snape tugged him upwards to kiss again. Without releasing the man’s cock, Remus paused and queried; “Where’s the wine?”  
  
Snape’s uninhibited laugh delighted him. Snape twisted, regrettably freeing his erection from Remus’ possessive clutch, and lifted the bottle up from the floor nearby. Miraculously, it was still holding its precious contents. Distracted from his carnal appetites, Remus commanded, “Give that here!”  
  
Snape held it just out of his reach, a calculating gleam in his eyes.  
  
“What will you give me for it?”  
  
Remus considered taking it by force – he reckoned he could if he wanted to – then he thought about what he wanted to do with Snape.  
  
“I’ll suck your cock.”  
  
Both Snape’s black eyebrows rose at his pronouncement. “Really,” he said, dragging the word out over twice its length.  
  
“Really,” he confirmed. He smiled. It was something he’d been thinking about for a few days, and he wanted to try it, knowing how good it felt to be on the receiving end. “Wine first, blow after,” he added.  
  
“Very well,” Snape acquiesced, handing the bottle over.  
  
Remus took another mouthful of the wine, tipping the neck to allow Snape to have some as well. It was a shameful abuse of a good vintage, but really, what better use could one have for a bottle of wine than to woo one’s lover? He took another mouthful and, looking down to assure himself of Snape’s continuing interest, he waggled his eyebrows suggestively at Snape and lowered himself to perform his task.  
  
The man snorted in either derision or amusement, or both. Remus didn’t mind, he was set on his target and closed his mouth carefully around the tip, swirling the wine around in his mouth.  
  
“Bloody fuck!”  
  
Snape’s initial reaction was all that Remus had hoped it would be. He closed his eyes to better appreciate the new experience of sucking a man’s cock.  
  
The wine preceded Snape’s essence down his throat. He decided the combination was rather pleasing.  
  
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	7. Chapter 7

VII.  
  
 _How could you do this, Moony?_  
  
Remus turned over in his sleep, a small frown forming on his forehead.  
  
 _How could you abandon my cousin for that greasy bastard?  
  
No! _  
  
He wanted to cry out, to defend himself against Sirius’ charge.  
  
 _No, it wasn’t like that! I think I loved you, Sirius…  
  
Well, of course you did, and I loved you too! After James was gone you were all I had left, my last true friend, Moony. But that has nothing to do with treating Tonks like this! With taking it up the arse for Snivellus, of all people! I can’t believe what a pathetic shit you are!  
  
No, no! _  
  
He shook his head from side to side, moaning in distress. His hand hit the headboard when he flung his arm out to ward off a blow.  
  
 _Stop cowering! You’re as bad as he is! I wouldn’t waste my time and energy beating you up: you’re just a dumb animal.  
  
Sirius, you don’t understand! I really loved you. Not just as a friend. I was just too fucked up to admit it, even to myself! _  
  
The voice in his head remained silent as he blinked at the ceiling, completely and shockingly awake.  
  
“Shit.”  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
“Come back to my house,” Snape said softly.  
  
They’d just left a muggle restaurant in London. Snape had led him into cold, dank alleyway to apparate, but then they’d been distracted by a heated kiss, which had led to another, and then to serious snogging and grinding out of sight of the main road. Snape’s breath was hot and urgent against his neck, a delicious contrast with the frigid night air.  
  
“Come back with me and let me debauch you,” Snape insisted, grabbing Remus’ arse firmly on the most important word.  
  
“Oh, Merlin,” Remus muttered. His thought processes had dwindled to ‘bare minimum needed to maintain crucial systems’. There was a reason that he shouldn’t follow Snape’s instructions… if only he could bloody remember it!  
  
“Unless you would rather I bugger you right here?” Snape whispered hoarsely. He ground a very firm groin against Remus’ hip to emphasise his question.  
  
“Bloody hell!”  
  
He had to wrench himself away in order to form a complete sentence. He still wasn’t used to being so thoroughly dominated. While it was quite true he enjoyed it immensely, it was also true that Snape had a habit of depleting his level of autonomy to an alarming degree on occasion.  
  
He was panting, trying to work out exactly how he could feel so annoyed and so aroused at the same time. He looked at Snape wondering how to tell him that, yes, he did want to fuck, but no, not right at this minute, thanks very much.  
  
“You don’t want to sleep together tonight?”  
  
Snape had made his task a whole lot simpler. The man’s voice had gone worryingly cool though.  
  
“I do! God, I do,” he tried explaining. “But I shouldn’t, Severus. I’m sorry,” he added, shaking his head then brushing back his flopping fringe of hair. “I need a haircut,” he commented with complete irrelevance. He half expected Snape to hex him for his feeble-mindedness.  
  
“Don’t you dare!”  
  
Snape stepped up to him, closing the distance once more. He tangled his fingers into Remus’ hair, brushing it back and kissing him lightly on the forehead. “I like it just the way it is, idiot.”  
  
He sighed in relief. And wasn’t it just like Snape to make the epithet ‘idiot’ into a term of endearment?  
  
Snape frowned at him. “Something is bothering you,” he observed. “Do you regret our… arrangement?”  
  
He snorted as Snape demonstrated, yet again, his inability to use the word ‘relationship’ in a sentence that described the two of them.  
  
“No,” he answered quickly at Snape’s dangerous look. “No, this is something that I need to work out alone, I’m afraid.”  
  
Snape tilted his head, lifted one eyebrow, the combination of body language that all but shouted ‘Explain yourself!’  
  
Remus took a deep breath. “Maybe we need to talk,” he said.  
  
“Every time that has ever been said to me has been an occasion of deep disappointment.”  
  
“Merlin! I’m sorry, Severus!” he hastened to reassure the man. “Believe me when I say that I am still in this with you. I just… have some issues. With the past, specifically,” he explained as best he could.  
  
Snape stepped back slightly. “Perhaps we should have coffee at your hovel then,” he suggested.  
  
“Alright. But I will throw you out at midnight,” Remus said. It was almost a question.  
  
“Agreed.” Snape nodded slightly and Apparated.  
  
Remus stood alone for a moment, examining the sense of loss he felt at Snape’s departure.  
  
“This is stupid,” he finally muttered to himself, and, retrieving his wand, followed Snape to his so-called hovel.  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
He held up the document for Snape to read. The man’s brow furrowed, but his only comment was, “She’s quick.”  
  
He nodded in agreement and wordlessly re-rolled the parchment; only the title showed: ‘Dissolution of Marriage’. He didn’t know why he thought showing it to Snape was important, even necessary.  
  
“I’ve been having dreams,” he blurted, again wondering why he was sharing these things with Snape.  
  
The man was still frowning, apparently at a loss for the right response. He cleared his throat and asked, “Nightmares?”  
  
“No! Goodness, no.” He knew what real nightmares entailed and these had been paltry by comparison. Still, they had…  _hurt._  
  
“Disturbing dreams then?” Snape queried, moving to sit at his tiny kitchen table.  
  
The kitchen was just an area at the far end of the combined lounge room and entryway. Snape was right: it was a hovel. But it was cheap and, after a fortnight’s work, it was clean. The main reason Remus had bought it had been the pot-bellied stove smack in the middle of the lounge room. It would keep the place warm as toast and provide him with much-needed heat during the nights of the full moon.  
  
He sighed and seated himself opposite Snape at the table. “Yes, disturbing would describe them well,” he admitted. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” he added in mild confusion.  
  
“I’m glad that you are telling me,” Snape said, then cleared his throat again – the very picture of someone caught in an uncomfortable situation.  
  
“Really?” He couldn’t help the snort of disbelief that accompanied his question.  
  
Snape’s gaze sharpened. Remus shivered, though it wasn’t cold in the Hovel.  
  
“Yes, I’m bloody glad, you cretin!” he hissed in annoyance.  
  
It was so wonderfully normal of him that Remus smiled broadly in response. “Well, good, I suppose.”  
  
“What do you dream about?”  
  
This could be even more awkward, he thought. “About Sirius. But not Sirius alive. Sirius dead, but not dead exactly.” He was stunned at his own level of incoherence.  
  
“I see.”  
  
Though it was obvious to both of them that he really didn’t. Remus tried again–  
  
“That suppression theory that you discussed with me… Well, I… with Sirius, and…”  
  
“You were in love with the mongrel and have only just realised the truth after shagging me for a while.”  
  
Snape had a way of cutting through to the heart of the matter. His heart thudded. How would Snape feel about his confession?  
  
“And now you’re plagued with nocturnal visitations from the idiot through the medium of your dreams.”  
  
“Well, I know it isn’t really  _him_ ,” he objected.  
  
“Don’t be so sure. I wouldn’t put it past the petty, interfering, self-righteous prick, even if he is dead!”  
  
“Severus!”  
  
The man seemed to collect himself. Remus watched as he struggled to rein in his ire.  
  
“I don’t suppose that helped at all,” Snape asked grumpily.  
  
Remus shook his head slowly.  
  
“Then why are you grinning at me like the village idiot?”  
  
“Because, for some reason, I want to throw you down on the rug and fuck you?”  
  
Snape look at him with a quizzical expression. “I thought you’d given me notice to vacate at midnight?”  
  
Remus laughed. “I know. My best intentions don’t stand up to you very well, do they?”  
  
“Perhaps they should, just for tonight.” Snape stood and stared down at him, his expression inscrutable.  
  
Remus stood up and moved closer to the man. “Perhaps,” he agreed, feeling illogically bereft. “But…”  
  
Words failed him at that point and he moved his arms to embrace the man.  
  
“Remus,” Snape whispered into his ear.  
  
“That’s torn it,” he gasped, and dragged Snape’s lips around to meet his. His kisses were just a little desperate, and he knew they shouldn’t do this tonight.  
  
“Are you certain?” Snape’s hoarse whisper broke into his desire.  
  
“Yes, and no,” he said. He searched for, and found, access to Snape’s neck.  _Enough talk._  
  
Snape groaned with pleasure. “Do you know,” he began, then gasped as Remus bit down at the juncture of shoulder and neck. “Ah!”  
  
Remus rubbed his crotch into Snape’s hip, placed a hand over Snape’s groin to toy with the hardening shape there.  
  
“Lupin, four weeks ago, even two weeks ago, I would have let you do this,” Snape gasped out.  
  
“Hmm?” He had a mouthful of Snape’s neck and was loath to give it up for mere talking.  
  
“Remus, we have to stop.”  
  
That finally got through the haze of arousal. He licked Snape’s neck in farewell and lifted his eyes to Snape’s face feeling vaguely ashamed.  
  
Snape cupped his face with hands that trembled minutely. He placed a chaste kiss on Remus’ mouth.  
  
“I’m going now,” he said, his voice strained.  
  
Remus nodded. His throat closed around words of farewell.  _I’m too needy._  
  
“Severus,” he called just before Snape opened the door.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“There was one other thing,” he said.  
  
“What is it?” Snape turned back from the door.  
  
He swallowed. “How do you feel about children?”  
  
Snape walked back to the table and dropped his coat over the back of the chair. Remus looked at him, a question on his face.  
  
“No need to leave  _now_ , Lupin. All thoughts of an amorous nature have just been eliminated from my mind.”  
  
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	8. Chapter 8

VIII.  
  
“Harry! Good to see you!” Remus said in greeting. “It’s been ages si…”  
  
He ground to a startled halt when Hermione stepped out from behind Harry. The lad was big enough now that she had been completely concealed.  
  
 _Well, he isn’t exactly a boy anymore, is he?_  
  
“Oh! Hello, Hermione.”  
  
“Hi, Remus,” his two visitors chimed in unison.  
  
Remus was immediately suspicious of their fixed smiles. He stepped back to allow them inside, a little warily. “Come in. It’s so nice to see you both.”  
  
Harry and Hermione made their way inside, looking around with unconcealed curiosity.  
  
“My humble abode,” he commented with amusement. “Where’s Ron?”  
  
“He’s still at the Ministry,” Hermione answered.  
  
“Working on a Saturday? That’s a little tragic, isn’t it? I’ll wager he’d rather be watching Quidditch,” Remus said, heading for the kitchen.  
  
“Too right,” agreed Harry and Hermione sighed in fond exasperation.  
  
“I know it’s warm but would you like some tea?” Remus asked, filling the kettle with water.  
  
‘Love some’ and ‘yes, please’ greeted the question and he lit the stove to boil the water.  
  
“Take a seat,” he called. He pulled the tealeaves and cups down from the cupboard and clattered for a while as he tried to work out why the two of them were visiting unannounced. Had Tonks sent them to check up on him? He thought he could resolve that question right away. He turned to face them where they sat stiffly side by side on the sofa.  
  
“So, have you seen Tonks lately?”  
  
“Er, we had lunch last week,” Hermione answered.  
  
Remus thought she looked a bit awkward but saw no sign of guilty twitching. He switched his attention to Harry.  
  
“Um, last week I think. She looks okay,” Harry answered. “Her hair is pink again.”  
  
 _Oh. That’s good I suppose._  
  
Completely distracted from his purpose, he was surprised by the pang in his chest at the evidence that Tonks had been able to get over their break up so quickly. How long had been? He realised with a quiet sense of shock that it had been over six months since they’d gone their separate ways.  
  
“Great,” he said over-heartily. “That’s great.”  
  
 _You bloody great hypocrite! You didn’t want to leave her in pain and yet you want her to pine after you indefinitely? Make up your fucking mind!_  
  
“Yes, she’s dating someone from Magical Law Enforcement. I don’t remember his name though,” Hermione added.  
  
Remus nodded, not trusting his voice for the moment, and poured the hot water into the teapot. He placed the cups and pot on a tray and took them into the lounge room to deposit on the small coffee table. He didn’t have another chair, so a sturdy wooden crate was positioned on the opposite side of the table.  
  
“So,” he began, “Why are you both here today?”  
  
Harry ticked his head to one side and rubbed his hands together. “We were worried about you,” he said.  
  
Hermione nodded. “We heard that Snape had been involved in your marriage break up, Remus.”  
  
There was a definite but unspoken question in both those statements. Remus tamped down his irritation and poured tea into the cups. He supposed he should be grateful that Tonks hadn’t been telling all and sundry about Snape before now.   
  
Hermione frowned down at the tray. “Who’s that one for?” she asked, pointing at the fourth cup.  
  
“Oh, that’s for Severus,” he answered mildly. He finished filling the cup and stood to carry it outside. “Why don’t you both come and say hello?”  
  
He led his bemused guests out through the back door to the yard. Cleared ground with posts and strings presented an arcane picture, and Snape stood with a quill and parchment, rather fetchingly sweaty and with his shirt open to the waist.  
  
“Tea, Severus,” Remus called.  
  
Not looking up, Snape called back, “I’ll want more than that by tonight – payment in fellatio, thank you very much.”  
  
Remus cleared his throat. Snape looked up, betraying no surprise at all upon seeing their two guests.  
  
 _You bugger!_  Remus fought down equally powerful urges to laugh or hex him.  
  
“Ah! I see you’ve brought me minions, Lupin.”  
  
“Here – take your tea. And don’t go drafting Harry and Hermione; they didn’t come here to work,” he admonished.  
  
“Extension?” asked Hermione, looking over the ground.  
  
“Oh, right!” Harry said, walking around to inspect. “Yeah, it’s a bit of a hovel back there,” he nodded.  
  
Remus laughed at the same time as Snape snorted, startling Harry so much that he slopped some of his tea.  
  
“If you addressed a letter to me, ‘Remus J Lupin, The Hovel’, it would be delivered here, Harry,” he explained, smiling.  
  
Hermione was studying the parchment Snape had left on a stack of bricks. “Two more bedrooms, a new kitchen and laundry room… Oh, that playroom looks lovely!” she exclaimed.  
  
Harry looked over her shoulder. “No potions lab?”  
  
Remus looked at Snape, who was staring right back at him. He stepped closer, the other two fading into insignificance. “Where’s the lab?” he asked.  
  
“It wouldn’t be safe to have it so close to the bedrooms,” Snape responded, his eyes darting to the side to observe their proximity to Harry and Hermione. “Can’t this discussion wait?”  
  
“No! It can’t,” Remus said. “And you can’t mean to stay here without a lab – which means that you don’t want…”  
  
“I said I would! I’m simply going  _down_ , you moron!”  
  
“Down,” he repeated. “Oh! Underground?” He felt like a right fool.  
  
“Yes,” Snape confirmed.  
  
Remus stroked the man’s warm shoulder. “Sorry?”  
  
“Hmmm, my fee just went up,” Snape sniffed haughtily.  
  
“Not in one night, Severus! I’ll strain something,” Remus objected.  
  
“I’m sure we could arrange a payment plan.”  
  
Remus suddenly remembered they had an audience. He looked back at Harry and Hermione standing just a few paces away. His face flamed and he gave a strangled laugh. He wasn’t surprised that it was Hermione who broke the awkward silence.  
  
“Are you planning to adopt?”  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
“That blasted fool!”  
  
Remus looked up to see Snape throw his bag on the kitchen table. The man’s mouth had a pinched, tight look.  
  
“Of all the damned idiotic, asinine, moronic…”  
  
“Careful,” he commented mildly, “I’ve never known you to run out of insults and I shouldn’t like you to start now.”  
  
“Blathering, wittering,” Snape continued.  
  
“Who is this unfortunately less than gifted intellectual that you refer to?” he asked with an indulgent smile.  
  
“Bloody Potter,” Snape fumed.  
  
Remus dropped the spoon into the pot he’d been stirring on the stove. “What?”  
  
“Damned imbecile waylaid me in Diagon Alley.”  
  
“What did he want? What did he do?”  
  
Snape reacted to Remus’ shift from complacent to distressed with a dismissive wave of his hand. “He’s playing the overprotective father, and rather missing the point that we are both old enough to be  _his_  father, having attended school in the same year.”  
  
This statement rendered a small and awkward silence; the specifics of their school years still held uncomfortable territory in their memories and, as if by some unconsciously taken decision, they had not spoken of those experiences since beginning their relationship.  
  
Remus spoke first, determined to find out just what Harry had been about today. “He questioned you about our… arrangement?” He reckoned that Snape was still not ready for  _that_  word.  
  
Snape sniffed. “The brat interrogated me,” he declared dramatically.  
  
Remus felt his eyes bulging. “In public?” he almost squawked.  
  
Harry and Hermione had seemed a little too accepting during their visit last week. Harry’s encounter with Snape put a new complexion on that apparent calm: Harry, at least, had been civil because of Remus’ presence. He turned back to the stove, fuming and consequently slopping the stew he’d been cooking as he stirred with too much vigour. “This is completely unacceptable!”  
  
“There were no witnesses to the debacle,” Snape sighed gustily. “Calm down, Lupin,” Snape dropped his cloak over the chair and edged closer. “The brat did me no harm and, despite being a numbskull and an inconvenient delay to my schedule, he does care deeply about your welfare.” The man leant in to inhale the fragrant steam from the pot Remus stirred haphazardly.  
  
“Besides, if you splatter any more of our meal over the kitchen in your agitation we shall be forced to lick it all up,” he intoned, demonstrating the action by licking behind Remus’ ear.  
  
“Don’t do that – I’m angry!”  
  
“I know,” Snape agreed, wrapping his hands around Remus from behind.  
  
“Severus,” he began, dropping the spoon in the saucepan and waving the flame down. He turned in Snape’s embrace. “I’m sorry for what Harry did, what he must have said. I don’t understand why he thought such action necessary!”  
  
Snape’s hands rose to push his ragged fringe away from his forehead. “It is not your apology to make, Lupin. Perhaps he will make his own amends, in time.”  
  
Realising that Snape’s outburst had actually purged his displeasure completely, Remus attempted to find his own calm acceptance. He couldn’t quite manage it but Snape provided enough distraction that he did manage to dismiss it from his mind for an hour, after which he was fully occupied trying to reliquefy a rather overcooked stew.  
  
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	9. Chapter 9

IX.  
  
“I’ve been invited to visit Ron and Hermione’s place.”  
  
“Mm,” Snape responded, his face firmly pressed into the pillow.  
  
“For dinner,” he added.  
  
“Mnnm.”  
  
“You aren’t invited.”  
  
Snape shifted and cracked open one dark eye to peer up at him.  
  
“I think the time for my interrogation has arrived at last.”  
  
It had been two weeks, and one full moon, since Harry had accosted Snape to ascertain his intentions towards Remus. He’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop, and this appeared to be it. He had to control his sense of outrage – he could be mistaken after all – but the pointed absence of Snape’s name on the parchment was an insult he was finding hard to take.  
  
“They are young, and they are concerned for you,” Snape said from his pillow.  
  
“How can you sound so delicious first thing in the morning?”  
  
Snape smirked.  
  
“I wonder if you taste as good?”  
  
Snape snorted. “I really rather doubt that,” he said, poking out his tongue as if to inspect it.  
  
“Oh, I didn’t mean  _there_ , Severus,” Remus corrected him with a beatific smile.  
  
Snape rolled over onto his back. “Painstaking investigation is the key to proving or disproving any hypothesis, Lupin.”  
  
Remus shoved all thoughts of interfering young adults from his mind and bent his intellect to research.  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
So far the company at dinner had been well behaved, although Remus was wary of being lulled into a false sense of security. Harry and Ginny had also been invited; making it obvious that Hermione and Ron’s failure to invite Severus had not been a mere oversight. Remus had taken some comfort from Severus’ tendency to treat the children’s (and he still thought of them that way, marriage and mortgages notwithstanding) machinations with tolerance. It had been a revelation to hear the man offering excuses for their snub. Perhaps Severus Snape was finally mellowing? He smiled with an overwhelming feeling of fondness; he couldn’t wait to get back home and slip into bed beside him.  
  
“Private joke?” Harry’s voice cut into his thoughts and Remus turned his attention back to the table.  
  
“Hm? No, no – just thinking about Severus,” he answered. Let’s see what they do with that little confession, he thought. No one had asked after the man when he’d arrived, again an obvious clue to what was coming.  
  
The four of them glanced at each other as if seeking agreement before Harry took a deep breath and said, “About Snape, um, actually we’d like to ask you about him, Remus,” Harry began.  
  
Remus cut in. “Actually, Harry,” he stressed the word pointedly, “If you wouldn’t mind, since we’re all on first name basis here, it’s Severus.”  
  
Harry swallowed, looking startled. “Right. About Severus, then; is he living with you now?”  
  
What business is it of yours, he thought. He counted to ten silently, reigning in his indignation.  
  
“Just about. He’s still spending a bit of time at Spinner’s End: the downstairs lab isn’t finished yet,” Remus finally replied, pleased at his level voice.  
  
“It’s all a bit quick, isn’t it?” Hermione commented. “I mean, you’ve only been divorced for a few months.”  
  
He shrugged, striving for calm. “Things with Tonks were falling apart long before we separated, Hermione,” he explained patiently. “When Severus and I started seeing each other it felt like finding a missing piece of myself.” He paused, realising the truth of what he’d just said, quite off the cuff.  
  
“But… he’s a bloke,” Ron broke in.  
  
Remus smiled. “Ye-es.”  
  
“And Tonks was… a woman.”  
  
Remus looked at Ron unflinchingly. “Quite right, Ron. She still is, I believe.”  
  
Ginny snorted. “Yeah, brilliant deduction, Ron.”  
  
Ron’s mouth quirked up and Remus was pleased to see that he had retained his ability to laugh at himself.  
  
“I think what you don’t understand is how I can be attracted to both sexes?”  
  
Ron blushed. Remus assumed it was the word ‘sex’ that had affected him so alarmingly. How could someone be a married man and still blush at that word, he wondered.  
  
“Well,” he took a deep breath and made a decision. “What I’ve come to realise recently is that I’m homosexual. I’ve been in denial, or rather I’d suppressed that part of myself so well that it took me quite by surprise when I became attracted to Severus.”  
  
“But you seemed happy with Tonks,” Harry said, still confused.  
  
“I thought that I was. Things began to change when she wanted to have a baby,” he explained.  
  
“Don’t you want children though? I thought…”  
  
“I do, Hermione. But I’m infertile.”  
  
“Oh, of course. I’m sorry, Remus,” she said.  
  
“Tonks wanted to have a child the traditional way,” he explained.  
  
“You mean…? But – why not use a potion so that the child could be yours as well?” Hermione queried with a frown.  
  
He shrugged again. “It was her wish that the baby be conceived by natural means. I didn’t really feel that I had much say in the matter other than picking the man who would father the baby.”  
  
“You chose Snape,” Ron stated with certainty.  
  
“Severus,” he corrected.  
  
“Yeah, sorry – Severus.”  
  
“Yes, I did.” Remus sighed. “And the rest is history. My straight life suddenly crumbled and I realised a lot of things that I’d always believed about myself weren’t really true.”  
  
“What things?” Harry asked, his voice calmer now.  
  
“Well, I began having flashbacks, and dreams about Sirius,” Remus began, wondering if Harry was ready to hear the rest, “and I had to acknowledge that I’d felt far more than just friendship for him. I could see that I’d lied to myself about my feelings for my oldest friend,” he finished. The pain is gone, he thought with a small jolt of surprise; I can say it out loud and it doesn’t hurt anymore.  
  
“Oh, Remus,” Hermione breathed, practically oozing empathy and caring.  
  
 _He’s right, Severus is right about them. They just want the best for me._  
  
“I can see now that you’ve been concerned for me,” he said, looking at each of them in turn. “But, if you would try to get to know Severus, without being blinded by your preconceptions, I’m sure you will understand why I’m perfectly happy with him; that I’ve never been more content in my life!”  
  
Hermione met his gaze, nodding slowly; Harry looked thoughtful; Ginny quirked a smile at him and Ron just raised his eyebrows and scarfed down his sticky date pudding as if the question was settled.  
  
Remus smiled and stood up. “I’ve had a very enjoyable evening. Dinner was delicious, Hermione, Ron,” he sketched a small bow to his hosts. “And it was lovely to see you, Ginny, after such a long time. Harry…” he slapped his ersatz godson on the shoulder. “Don’t be a stranger. And that goes for you all. You’re welcome at any time at The Hovel.”  
  
Hermione and Harry stood and followed him to the door and Ron brought his cloak from the hallstand.  
  
“I imagine it’s a rather grand hovel after your renovations,” Hermione commented.  
  
He nodded. “Actually, it’s a home now.”  
  
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	10. Chapter 10

X.  
  
Remus struggled to master his feelings; it wouldn’t do to convey his pity to these children: they had already been through enough. Orphaned or abandoned during the conflict with Voldemort, he was sure that any small equilibrium they had managed to achieve would be shaken by an overt expression of distress on his part. He glanced at Snape, observing his inscrutable expression and knowing him well enough to be certain that the man was just as shocked and moved by the children’s condition.  
  
The Children’s Shelter should have been a busy, noisy hubbub of activity. There should be kids running and playing, shouting and laughing, but instead the place was disturbingly quiet. The children spoke softly, some played with toys but others just sat staring apathetically at the floor.  
  
How the hell were they supposed to choose just one?  
  
He caught Snape’s eye and tried to express his despair non-verbally. The frown-crease between Snape’s brows deepened. “Two, no more,” he responded quietly.  
  
Remus sighed gustily. It still wasn’t enough, but it was a definite improvement over one.  
  
“Thank you,” he whispered.  
  
 _Merlin! Which of you poor little buggers gets to be saddled with us?_  
  
He squatted down at the edge of the dismal group, waiting to see if any of them responded to him. Snape stood aloof, observing the scene impassively.  
  
A little girl peeked up at him with wide, solemn eyes.  
  
A toddler of indeterminate gender gazed at him unblinkingly from a rickety playpen, a wooden toy rolling unheeded out of its hands.  
  
Remus looked up at Snape. He was struggling not to weep. The look in Snape’s eyes changed, becoming tortured for a moment as his eyes met Remus’, then the impenetrable curtain descended once more.  
  
Remus looked back at the toddler who still gazed at him, seemingly transfixed. How long had it been since these children had seen anyone other than their carers? Something about the child’s face looked familiar – the grey eyes, white-blond hair, though it may darken over time; the child didn’t even look two years old yet.  
  
 _Malfoy!_  
  
Remus darted a glance at Snape and read the same shock of recognition on his face as he studied the child. Snape turned to find the director of the shelter, striding off to speak with him about his suspicions no doubt. The child’s eyes shifted from Remus to follow the swirl of Snape’s dark robes.  
  
He hid a smile and moved to sit cross-legged on the floor. The little girl was glancing his way again and fidgeting with a tatty-looking doll. Remus thought she might be trying to get up enough courage to approach him. There was a small boy sitting in the corner that he hadn’t really noticed before. It seemed obvious now that the boy was quite deliberately trying not to be noticed. He had pulled his shirt down over his knees, which were drawn up under his chin. The boy’s face was all but hidden behind his kneecaps, just the top of his messy head and his eyes were visible. Those eyes met his now and skittered away before he could decide what colour they were.  
  
Snape rustled as he knelt beside him. Remus’ eyebrows rose in question.  
  
“No record of her parents exists. She was abandoned outside the Shelter two weeks after Voldemort fell.”  
  
It was a little girl! He looked back at the toddler – yes, he could see her as she would be in another year, maybe in a dress with her hair grown out slightly? It didn’t matter: she could spend all her days in jeans and muddy boots if she wanted to.  
  
He shared a look with Snape, his mind made up. Snape smirked at him.  
  
“That’s one, my dear werewolf,” he murmured.  
  
Remus looked with regret at the little girl who had been glancing his way. She would manage; he could see now that she wasn’t too badly damaged. He nodded in the direction of the boy hiding in his shirt.  
  
“Are you sure?” Snape asked, his voice expressing his misgivings.  
  
“He needs us,” he replied simply. This wasn’t going to be easy.  
  
“That’s two then.”  
  
“Three?”  
  
“Let’s make sure we can deal with these two first, hmm?”  
  
“Yes, you’re right. I wish we could take them all, Severus.”  
  
He felt a hand squeeze his shoulder.  
  
“I know.”  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
They'd finished signing a veritable ton of papers. Adoption was a rare thing in the wizarding world; there was usually a shortage of children and there were simply no spares to go around. The war had changed that and wizarding society had been slow to adapt to the new circumstances. There were doubtless childless couples that would adopt if it were seen as a socially acceptable alternative.  
  
Well, bugger ‘socially acceptable’, he thought, following the director back into the playroom and thinking that describing it as a  _play_ room wasn’t entirely accurate. His heart ached for the children they were going to leave behind. The director gestured for him to pick up the baby girl from the playpen. Snape moved over to the boy crouched in the corner, who responded by ducking his head even further down behind his knees, leaving only the top of his head visible. Remus had qualms about whether Severus could coax an emotionally damaged child into trusting him, but he was soon distracted by the solid little bundle in his arms.  
  
The baby girl stared at him with eyes so wide it seemed they might pop out of her head. They had to choose a name for her; since the staff had stumbled over her on the doorstep six months ago none had been supplied.  
  
"Hello, sweetheart," he greeted her softly, "I'm Remus and I'm going to be your Daddy from now on."  
  
And just like that, he was a father.  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
Remus struggled to hang on to the wriggling, slippery toddler he was bathing.  
  
“Honey, just keep… Woops!”  
  
He quickly lifted her head above the water level again. The little girl looked wide-eyed with shock and her eyelashes clumped together and darkened with water. Her bottom lip looked like it was going to start a serious Wobble.  
  
“Sorry, sweetheart,” he crooned, moving to support her more securely. His back felt like it would snap any second, but he picked up the washcloth and kept his voice soothing. “Daddy was a right duffer letting you go under the water, wasn’t he?”  
  
His daughter sneezed, the sound so indignant that he chuckled. The little girl looked up at him in vague reproach that he should find it amusing. Remus smiled back at her and laid the washcloth down.  
  
“There, now you’re all clean!”  
  
He carefully lifted the wriggling tot and, holding her in one arm, snagged the large towel from the nearby chair and wrapped it around her. Thus burdened he almost walked into the young boy, unable to see him until he was all but on top of him. He swerved and stumbled, letting fly with an un-parent like expletive.  
  
“Bloody hell, Darius! Don’t creep up on me like that! I almost flattened you,” Remus remonstrated, feeling guilty and angry all at once. The guilt flared higher when the boy backed away, blank faced and shaking.  
  
“Darius, it’s okay,” he began, chagrined. “Come back, please!” But the boy had already disappeared.  
  
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	11. Chapter 11

XI.  
  
Remus lowered himself carefully onto the bed, groaning at the pain that shot through his back as he straightened his spine. “I think I’m too old for this,” he whined.  
  
Snape snorted without looking up from his book.  
  
“You’re supposed to make sympathetic noises,” Remus whined again.  
  
Snape looked up from his book and curled his lip.  
  
“That’s not sympathetic and it wasn’t even a noise, Severus,” he complained. “And you haven’t offered me a back rub or anything!”  
  
“Merlin’s man boobs, you do go on,” muttered Snape, dropping his book on the bedside table. “Turn over then,” he commanded.  
  
Remus did so, groaning piteously.  
  
“Without the clothes, you idiot.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
Remus struggled out of his clothing, the socks eliciting much grunting and soft swearing as he bent his aching back to reach them. He flopped back on the bed with a huff of exhaustion.  
  
He felt Snape’s hands stroking over his back, not pressing yet, but he hummed happily in anticipation.  
  
“You need to name our daughter,” Snape commented as he attacked the knotted muscles in Remus’ shoulders.  
  
“Ah, fuck! Yes, I know. I have a short list. You?” he asked.  
  
“Augustine, Boadicea, Cleopatra.” Snape drove his fingers into the corded muscles along Remus’ spine.  
  
“Ah – fuckfuckfuck!” Remus squirmed like a fish on a hook. “And that’s… just… the first three letters.”  
  
“I have more,” Snape offered.  
  
“I’m sure you do,” Remus panted. Snape’s hands had dropped to his buttocks, pressing in on the bunched muscles. “Are they all so… weighty?”  
  
“Weighty, hmm?” Snape ran his fingers lightly over Remus’ bottom then along the inside of his thighs. “What would you choose then?”  
  
Remus twitched and moaned as Snape’s fingers traced along the cleft.  _Bloody tease!_  
  
“I thought maybe Annie, or Bobby, or what about Cassie?”  
  
Snape’s hands dug back into his shoulders. It didn’t make him swear this time; he must be loosening up at last.  
  
“I’m fairly certain that  _Bobby_  is a boy’s name,” Snape stated in apparent bewilderment.  
  
“Short for Roberta,” he wheezed out. Snape was leaning over him and pressing on the middle of his back; it felt wonderful but he couldn’t breathe.  
  
“Hmm.”  
  
Snape sounded as impressed with Remus’ list as Remus was with Snape’s list.  
  
“Maybe we could find something that complements Darius,” he suggested after Snape lifted his weight off Remus’ back.  
  
“Starting with D, do you mean?” Snape had moved his attention to Remus’ legs.  
  
“Yes, or something with a similar… oh, bloody…”  
  
“Hmm?”  
  
“That, there… aah!”  
  
“It sounds like you’re in the middle of orgasm, Lupin. Positively obscene,” Snape hissed in his ear. He moved to straddle Remus’ hips.  
  
Remus couldn’t move. He was too relaxed; the endorphins released during Snape’s brutal massage had robbed him of all muscle tension. He could breathe, and he was sure he could open his eyes with enough forward planning. But nothing else.  
  
There was only one thing better than this feeling.  
  
“Fuck me.”  
  
He heard Snape cast a silencing charm on the door.  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
"Donata," Remus said breathlessly. He picked up his wand from the floor and took down Snape's silencing charm. He would have to get up and check on the children: he wouldn't sleep until he did so.  
  
"Donata," Snape repeated slowly. "A gift."  
  
"Yes." She was their beautiful gift. He made a move towards sitting up.  
  
“Stay. I’ll go and check on them,” Snape said as he stood up.  
  
“Severus, I could kiss you,” he sighed.  
  
“You’ve just done a damn sight more than that, you silly creature.”  
  
“Mmm.” Remus waggled his eyebrows at Snape.  
  
Snape snorted and left the room quietly.  
  
Remus’ mind turned to their troubled son. Darius had returned an hour after fleeing Remus’ company earlier in the day. It had been relief beyond all measure: he’d been on the verge of calling up a search party.  
  
With careful self-restraint he had avoided making a big deal out of the boy’s absence, keeping his comments to a quick apology for his sharp words and a promise not to shout at Darius again. Darius had nodded his understanding without meeting his eyes and spent the rest of the day in his room stacking his bookshelf with all the toys their friends had been leaving for him.  
  
The situation had seemingly been resolved, but Remus knew that Darius was going to take a long time to heal from whatever horrors had been visited upon him.  
  
Snape slipped back through the door, interrupting his anxious thoughts and providing much filthier ones. He watched as the man took off his robe and climbed back into bed. He sighed; the spirit was most certainly willing but the body was out for the count. He contented himself with wrapping his arms about an unresisting Snape, wriggling until they were comfortably spooned.  
  
It was some time later that he heard a sneeze and a juicy sniffle. They spent the rest of the night with enough clothing for decency, and a small girl dribbling between them in the bed.  
  
Remus was expanding the bed first thing in the morning.  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
“Do you trust me?” Remus asked.  
  
Snape’s mouth quirked up on one side. “Not under certain circumstances,” he drawled.  
  
“Oh?” Remus prompted.  
  
“If there were only one chocolate frog left in the house I wouldn’t trust you not to eat it when my back was turned.”  
  
“Ah. That would be wise,” Remus agreed with a smile. “But under other circumstances, perhaps?” He held up a handful of white rope.  
  
Snape put down his book. “Lupin. You do surprise me.”  
  
Remus walked towards the bed. “So what do you think? Would you trust me enough to let me tie you, Severus?”  
  
Snape held his gaze, reaching with his hand to stroke one finger along a loop of rope. Heat crawled up Remus’ spine, perspiration tickled under his moustache. He held his breath.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Remus released his breath in a sigh. “Tonight?”  
  
“You’re quite sure the children are asleep?”  
  
“Dead to the world,” Remus answered, then grimaced slightly at the morbid phrase.  
  
“Very well then.” Snape turned back the bedcovers and stood. He’d worn a nightshirt to bed, as he had done ever since Donata’s cold had forced them to adopt decent attire for the night. He slipped the garment over his head and stood facing Remus. “How do you want me?”  
  
“On your back, please,” Remus answered without hesitation.  
  
He’d been picturing this in his mind for a few weeks, wondering if he dare suggest it. Remus dropped the towel he’d had wrapped around his waist after his shower, watching as Snape folded his frame back onto the bed, arms spread towards the top corner posts. Remus stepped forward to tenderly wrap the soft rope around Snape’s right wrist then around the bedpost, and proceeded to tie his other wrist to the opposite bedpost. His lustful feelings were held in check while he concentrated on looping and knotting. He wriggled a finger into the bindings without any trouble: not too constricting. Remus stepped back to admire the picture Snape made. He was hard in moments. Snape, who had been eyeing his bound wrists, dropped his gaze to Remus’ crotch and smirked.  
  
Remus was quite sure that he would be the one smirking shortly.  
  
After torturing Snape with licks, bites and pinches, he finally fell to preparing him for invasion. Snape had steadily become more vocal throughout their lovemaking, and was now sounding a little desperate. Remus arranged the man’s legs over his shoulders, noticing a fine tremble in the limbs, and slid home with a cry of intense pleasure.  
  
Snape gasped and, gripping the ropes, pulled them taut; his wiry muscles bunched with tension. “I won’t last,” he ground out.  
  
Every hair on Remus’ body was standing up and he could feel climax clawing at him. Still, he kept the pace of his thrusts painfully slow, long years spent in rigid self-control aiding him in overriding his instinct to pound mindlessly into Snape. “I…” he began.  
  
“Stop it! STOP IT! Let him go!”  
  
Their movements froze with a look of horror at each other.  
  
“Get off him!” Darius screamed.  
  
Remus turned to look at the doorway where their son was standing tense and white. He could see the boy trembling.  
  
“Darius,” he started, gasping slightly as he pulled out of Snape and scrabbled for the bedcovers to cover Snape and himself.  
  
“Take those off him, you fucking bastard!” Darius was pointed to Snape’s bound hands.  
  
Mortified, Remus groped for the bedside table and used his wand to undo the knots. He stared at Darius in confusion. What had prompted such an extreme reaction? Surely he knew how things stood between his two fathers. “He’s not hurt, Darius,” he said gently. Remus glanced at Snape but he was gazing at the boy with a blank expression, taking the rope slowly off his wrists.  
  
“I believe you forgot the silencing charm, Lupin,” he commented blandly.  
  
 _Oh, shite – I did!_  
  
“Sorry,” Remus murmured.  
  
“You animal! You bloody bastard! I hate you!”  
  
“Darius!” He quite literally didn’t know what to say. How could one explain to a child the erotic nature of a bit of bondage with the one you love? “It was harmless fun, nothing more.”  
  
“That’s not fun!” The boy screamed, “That’s what they did to my Mum, and she fucking died!”  
  
Remus felt his skin goose bump. Things were starting to make a horrid kind of sense, including Darius’ familiarity with verbal obscenities. “That must have been a terrible thing for you, to lose your mother that way,” he choked out, “but that wasn’t what I was doing to Severus.”  
  
“Come with me,” Darius stared at Snape. Tears rolled down his face, yet he hadn’t sobbed.  
  
Wordlessly Snape reached for his nightshirt beside the bed, slipping it on over his head before sliding out from under the covers.  
  
“Severus?”  
  
The man glanced back at him for a moment – Remus saw an odd light of triumph in his eyes – then he turned and walked to where Darius stood, pale and shaking but resolute, in the doorway of the bedroom.  
  
They left together, Darius’ hand clutching at Snape’s. Remus stared at the empty doorway in disbelief.  
  
An hour later he ventured out to use the bathroom and, leaving the light on, peeked into Darius’ room. The boy was asleep in his bed with Snape curled around one side; his hands firmly clasped around one of Snape’s. Black eyes gleamed at Remus in the reflected light from the hallway.  
  
“Everything alright?” he whispered.  
  
“Fine. Go to sleep, Lupin.”  
  
Dismissed, he headed back to bed alone. It was a long time before he could put the events of the evening behind him long enough to find sleep.  
  
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	12. Chapter 12

XII.  
  
Snape had a shadow. It was short and sombre-eyed and stared at Remus with unnerving mix of fear and hatred. They had to do something about Darius.  
  
The boy had been attached to Snape for a week, unresponsive to all Remus’ attempts to resolve the issues of his lingering fear of Remus and the underlying trauma Darius carried from witnessing his mother’s murder. Snape had neither helped nor hindered, taking the view that he represented neutral territory for the boy, a safe harbour in a stormy sea. Remus felt stretched to breaking: he tried not to feel regret for taking Darius on, for thinking he could help him. Kids always gave their parents challenges – it was part of the parenting role – but something had to give.  
  
Remus tucked Donata into the high chair and placed her dish on the little table in front. “There you go, sweetheart . Some yummy sandwiches.”  
  
Donata peered at the bread with deep suspicion.  
  
“It’s cheese, darling,” he sighed. Any more criticism and he was going to leave home.  
  
“Eeez!” the toddler squealed, and fell upon the sandwiches, pulling the bread apart to devour the slices of cheese hidden therein.  
  
Remus sighed again as he fumbled mentally to add more fibre to the evening’s prospective menu. He heard footsteps ascending from the laboratory: Severus and Son coming up for lunch. He could feel the muscles in his neck and shoulders tensing to a rock-like solidity. He took a bite from his own sandwich for distraction and starting chewing busily. He bit his tongue. “Ow, shi…”  
  
He clapped a hand over his mouth, to avoid both the spilling of a mouthful of half-masticated cheese sandwich and the finishing of a Bad Word. He looked up at Severus as he entered the kitchen to see the man smirking in amusement at his almost-lapse.  
  
“Cheese sandwiches all round, with the addition of pickle for us,” Remus informed him.  
  
“I like pickle,” Darius said quietly. He looked at Snape expectantly.  
  
“No use telling me that, Remus made the sandwiches,” Snape responded, gesturing in Remus’ direction.  
  
Remus stopped chewing the better to follow the exchange. Darius flicked a brief look in his direction, his eyes for once devoid of the usual anger and hatred. He looked wary more than anything else. “I like pickle,” he repeated, eyes downcast.  
  
Remus swallowed. “How about I put some on your sandwiches then?”  
  
Darius nodded jerkily, looking down at the table.  
  
“Pass me your plate, please?”  
  
Darius picked up his plate and held it towards Remus. His hand shook slightly. Remus took it and pushed himself up and out of his chair. He couldn’t help the grin that spread over his face once he was shielded from view. He took the jar of pickle down from the shelf, spreading some over Darius’ cheese and put the sandwiches back together, all the while aware that he probably looked like a lunatic with his face pulled into an expression of such vapid happiness. He took a second to school his expression, turning it down from maniacal to pleasantly friendly.  
  
“Cheese with pickle for the young man at table one,” he quipped, placing the plate down in front of Darius.  
  
The boy reached out slowly and picked up a sandwich, hesitating briefly before taking a bite. Remus watched him out of the corner of his eye as he took up his own lunch once more. He held his smile in check, glancing at Snape to gauge his reaction. He saw that same light of triumph behind Snape’s eyes, that odd glow that had been there after Darius had discovered Remus and Snape indulging in a spot of bondage a week previously. At that time it had made Remus anxious and confused: on top of everything else it had seemed like a betrayal of some kind. Just what kind he couldn’t fathom.  
  
Remus felt the space behind his own eyes illuminate in sudden understanding. Snape had been happy that night, despite the circumstances of its occurrence, about the crack that had opened in the walls Darius had erected around himself. Unlike Remus, Snape had anticipated this moment.  
  
He honestly didn’t know which he wanted to do more, snog the man senseless, or slap him senseless. Snape had demonstrated a certainty and faith in Darius where Remus had struggled and worried. It was galling. It was a little humiliating. And it was Snape.  
  
Remus sighed.  
  
“Just a little bit of bread now, sweetheart?” he tried to coax Donata.  
  
The little girl held up her plate with its unwanted pieces of bread.  
  
“Eez, peez!”  
  
“Your mistress commands you, Lupin. Hop to it.”  
  
Remus swung his eyes round to Snape. The man was damn well smirking at him again. He rose to retrieve another slice of cheese for Donata, plotting ways to get back at his lover.  
  
No doubt about it – Snape was going to suffer. And this time he wouldn’t forget the silencing charm.  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
Remus stood in the doorway of Snape’s laboratory watching Darius taking dusty jars out of a wooden crate and carefully handing them up to Snape who stood on a short ladder. The boy struggled to read the labels on each jar as he lifted them into the light.  
  
“Ash-pod-ill.”  
  
That’s pronounced  _aspodel_ ,” Snape corrected mildly, taking the jar from Darius’ outstretched hand.  
  
“You should spell it properly then.”  
  
“Impertinent brat, there’s nothing wrong with my spelling,” Snape responded, scrutinizing the label of the jar he held. “Hmf.”  
  
“Made you look!” Darius crowed and did a little hop.  
  
Remus heard a muffled chuckle from the ladder and Snape placed the jar with its companions high upon the newly installed storage shelves.  
  
“Watch where you’re prancing, clod!” he said over his shoulder, glancing up to meet Remus’ eyes.  
  
“Am not a clot!” Darius objected, pulling another jar carefully out of the crate and frowning quizzically at the label.  
  
“I said  _clod_ , not clot, although there isn’t much to choose between the two I suppose, you cloddish clot,” Snape remarked as he held a hand out for the next jar.  
  
“What’s Wolf Bane?”  
  
Remus felt his heart speed up in contradiction to the way his blood seemed to stop flowing. He stared at Snape’s back waiting to hear what he would say, wondering what he might have been about to say if he hadn’t happened to see Remus standing in the doorway.  
  
“Perhaps Remus could tell you about that one, hmm?”  
  
 _Bloody hell, Severus!_  
  
He cleared his throat and Darius’ head whipped around at the sound, his eyes instantly wide.  
  
“Er, hello,” Remus ventured, waving a hand in vague salutation and feeling like a complete twit. “I came to see if you wanted some hot chocolate.”  
  
Darius continued to stare at him as Severus answered without looking at him. “I could certainly use some refreshment. What about you, Darius?”  
  
“Um…” The boy’s eyes flickered from Severus to Remus. “Yeah.”  
  
“Yes, what?” Snape prompted.  
  
“Um, yes, please?”  
  
“Right. Two hot chocolates coming up,” Remus said. “Oh, and Wolfsbane is a plant used in the brewing of the devilishly difficult Wolfsbane Potion, which your father there…” He gestured at Severus, “Is able to brew for me once a month, as he’s about the best damned potions master in Britain.”  
  
He fled back up to the kitchen and put a saucepan of milk on the stove.  
  
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	13. Chapter 13

XIII.  
  
Remus was putting Donata in her high chair in preparation for eating lunch – another round of cheese sandwiches, the flavour of the week – when the floor shook and gave an ominous groan. At the same moment there was a shout and a piercing shriek from the stairwell doorway. Reacting with war-time speed, Remus pulled Donata out of the chair and deposited her in the playpen in two strides, then he was down the stairs to the lab three at a time, wand somehow in his hand though he hadn’t been aware of picking it up.  
  
As he reached the bottom of the steps Remus saw Snape enveloped in blue flames. Darius was hopping from one leg to the other trying to get close enough to help.  
  
Snape was bellowing at the boy, “Get back! Go, damn you!”  
  
An acrid stench was searing the back of his nose as Remus scooped Darius into his arms and left him halfway up the stairs.  
  
“Go upstairs to Dona. She needs you!”  
  
Turning back to Snape, Remus saw the flames licking higher; they threatened to set fire to his hair any second.  
  
“Severus!”  
  
The man struggled out his robes, the blue fire seemingly unquenchable, but the flame had spread to one leg of his trousers. Remus moved closer, preparing to spell the flames out.  
  
“Hold still!” Remus commanded.  
  
“No water, Lupin!” Snape shouted, anxious and pained. He froze while Remus ducked low and grabbed his trouser leg. Remus tore the entire leg away at the seams and levitated both the robes and the piece of cloth into a cauldron against the wall.  
  
“What is it?” he asked Snape, breathing heavily. The man had slumped against the workbench, panting.  
  
“A highly flammable adhesive. I was brewing when Darius got into… well, it must have been the firefly wings.” Snape groaned and slumped further. “He sneezed.”  
  
“Well, it seems to be burning your clothes rather niftily,” Remus commented, peering into the cauldron. “Why didn’t you use an aqua spell?”  
  
“It would have… reacted…”  
  
Remus made it to Snape’s side to catch him as he pitched sideways.  
  
“You’re bloody hurt! Where?”  
  
“I… I…”  
  
Snape’s eyes rolled up and his head lolled forward.  
  
“Dad?”  
  
Remus turned with his arms full of unconscious Snape to see Darius’ feet appear at the top of the steps. “Stay there, son, I’m bringing your dad up now.”  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
After floo calling Hermione for help, Remus had tended as best he could to Severus, delegating supervision of Donata to Darius. Severus had not regained consciousness before Hermione’s arrival and he’d tamped down his anxiety as he stripped off the remains of Severus’ trousers and removed his long-sleeved shirt. Severus’ skin had been cool and clammy to the touch and his breathing shallow and fast. There’d been an alarming blue tinge around his lips.  
  
He’d stood aside as Hermione emerged from the fireplace, leaving the bedroom to check on the children. It seemed odd to place such faith in Hermione’s expertise, but her studies of the Healing Arts, though mainly theoretical, were extensive. In his opinion she was the equal to any healer at St Mungo’s and Remus was sure that she could diagnose Snape’s sudden illness.  
  
He crouched down to look into Darius’ face; the boy had sat on the floor in the corner, dragging his shirt over his knees.  
  
“Are you alright?” Remus asked.  
  
The boy looked up at Remus, his expression stricken. “Is he going to die?” Darius asked, his voice wobbling on the last word.  
  
“No! No, of course not. Severus is made of much sterner stuff than that.”  
  
“What’s wrong with him?”  
  
“That’s what Hermione’s here to find out. In the meantime though, are you hurt anywhere?”  
  
Darius shook his head slowly side to side.  
  
“That’s good,” Remus breathed in relief. “How about I get you something to eat then? It’s past lunchtime and I’m sure Donata would like a cheese sandwich.”  
  
On cue Donata looked up and cried, “Eeez!” and clapped her tiny hands with glee.  
  
Remus huffed in amusement despite his preoccupation with Snape’s state. He moved over to the playpen to release his daughter from her imprisonment.  
  
Darius followed him after a minute, moving like a ghost to sit on his chair at the kitchen table.  
  
Remus put Donata in her high chair and placed her sandwich in front of her. He’d turned back to the counter to make a sandwich for Darius when he heard the boy’s bleak voice say, “It’s all my fault.”  
  
Remus turned to look at him in alarm.  
  
“Darius, no – that’s not true!”  
  
He sat down on the chair next to his son.  _He is my son, and he is hurt: just not where it shows._  
  
“It was an accident. It was not your fault. In fact, if I know your father – and I think I do – he will wake up calling himself seven different kinds of fool and be blaming himself for the whole incident,” Remus said with soft intensity.  
  
Darius finally looked up from his clenched fists.  
  
“He’ll wake up?”  
  
“Yes, Darius. He’ll wake up,” Remus stated in a level voice. After a moment he caught Darius’ face between his hands, breaking his self-imposed restriction on physical contact. He stroked the boy’s cheeks with his thumbs. Darius trembled under his hands but didn’t pull away.  
  
“He’ll be fine,” Remus repeated his assurance.  
  
 _Don’t make me a liar, Severus._  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
Remus had settled Darius on the rug with a box of muggle toys that he’d found in a junk shop. It included that wonderful invention, Lego, probably meant for much younger children in the muggle world, but the novelty of it would keep Darius amused for some time. Donata was asleep in her playpen, knees curled up under her tummy and bottom pointing skyward.  
  
He left the children and stood in the doorway of the bedroom watching as Hermione placed a charm on Severus to monitor his temperature. Her movements were unhurried as she proceeded to put her equipment back into a small handbag. He watched in bemusement as her bag swallowed all manner of things with no change to its contours, he’d heard about that bag.  
  
Studying Severus’ face, Remus crept quietly into the room.  
  
“His colour looks better,” he ventured.  
  
Hermione snapped her bag shut and smiled. “Yes, he’s fine now, just sleeping. He had an allergic reaction,” she explained.  
  
“An allergy? I thought he’d been burned badly, but I couldn’t see where.” Remus frowned in confusion. As far as he knew people with allergies sneezed and got runny noses. They didn’t keel over one minute and look like they were dying the next as a result of a piddling allergy!  
  
“Quite a severe one: anaphylaxis. The burns on his leg are quite minor and should heal by themselves.”  
  
“Good heavens,” Remus said. He had no idea what anaphylaxis meant but it sounded bad.  
  
“What was he working on?” Hermione asked.  
  
“Ah. He told me…” Remus closed his eyes, picturing the scene in the lab just before Severus collapsed. “Oh! It was an adhesive,” he remembered suddenly.  
  
Hermione nodded as if this was what she suspected. “I’m almost certain he must have been working with latex as part of the recipe then. He has a latex allergy.”  
  
“Latex, like rubber?” Remus asked. The only things he knew that were made of rubber were those horrid condom-things that muggles used. Well, those and the soles of his shoes. He’d never heard of it being used in potions before.  
  
“If he’s never been exposed to it to any significant degree before then he would react quite suddenly after just a short period of close contact with it,” Hermione explained. “He would have had very little warning that he had an allergy until he went into shock and collapsed.”  
  
“Would he have felt sick?”  
  
He’d thought Severus was a bit too quiet at breakfast but assumed he was just preoccupied. The potions order was a challenging one.  
  
Hermione nodded. “Yes, but possibly just a headache and slight nausea. The way you described the accident makes me think that it most likely occurred because he wasn’t able to concentrate and monitor Darius at the same time.”  
  
“I am here, you know.”  
  
The raspy voice came from the bed and Remus spun to see Snape’s eyes open to bloodshot slits.  
  
“Bloody hell, Severus – you gave me a fright,” he said, moving to the side of the bed and perching next to the man. “Don’t do that again too soon, hmm? My nerves are all a twitter,” he said, smiling stupidly down at Severus. He reached to stroke the man’s forehead with his fingertips. “You feeling better?”  
  
“Better than what?” came the irascible reply.  
  
“Better than a slightly warmed over corpse, perhaps?” Hermione replied tartly. She hefted her bottomless bag and leant to kiss Remus on the cheek. “I’ll be going now. Keep him in bed until tomorrow, Remus.”  
  
“What have you done to me?” Severus croaked, his ruby red eyes fastening her in place.  
  
“I’ve forced your adrenal gland to secrete rather a lot more than usual, and I’ve given you a metabolic balancing potion. Both the allergic reaction and the stabilising procedures are exhausting and you need at least a day to recuperate,” Hermione replied in a no-nonsense tone.  
  
“Thank you. I don’t know what we would have done without you,” Remus said, rising to put his arms around her.  
  
She hugged him back and looked up with a mock frown. “Banish his latex supplies before he gets into more mischief – and don’t let him talk you out of it.”  
  
Remus chuckled. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, tugging his forelock.  
  
“Goodbye, Severus. Take care of yourself,” she said, and, to Remus’ pleased surprise, bent and kissed Snape’s cheek.  
  
“Thank you,” Severus whispered, his fingers raised a few inches from the bed in wave. He appeared to drop into sleep at once.  
  
Remus raised his eyebrows in question.  
  
“Don’t worry,” Hermione said as she walked out of the bedroom, Remus trailing her to the fireplace. “He really just needs rest now.”  
  
“And chicken soup?” he asked with a smile.  
  
“Well, that’s always been a magical cure for everything,” Hermione laughed as she threw a handful of floo powder into the fireplace. “Call me if you have any problems.”  
  
“Send me the bill!” Remus called after her as she stepped into the green flames. Her laughter echoed for a moment after she vanished from sight.  
  
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	14. Chapter 14

XIV.  
  
Donata was asleep in her cot long since. Darius had sat beside Remus on the sofa while he read a book after cleaning up the dinner dishes. Remus had noticed him inching closer each time he turned a page and glanced at him. He’d been hoping the boy would fall asleep unprompted. He would carry him to bed when he did, but so far Darius’ eyes were wide open and haunted, his hands busily constructing and deconstructing Lego blocks.  
  
Remus sighed and put down his paperback – another find from the junk shop – and looked at Darius.  
  
“Do you want to check on your dad again?”  
  
He’d taken the boy into the bedroom to look at Severus, and listen to him breathe, about four times so far. Darius shook his head, using the movement to inch just a bit closer to Remus, hands still busy with the brightly coloured blocks. Remus wasn’t fooled by the studied air of unconcern.  
  
“Do you know, he’s going to wake up hungry in the morning. I’ll need some help to look after him, and you won’t be any good to me if you’re too tired to make toast,” he tried to reason.  
  
Darius shrugged, again inching closer. It dawned on Remus that the boy wanted to cuddle but didn’t know how to reach out. He wanted to slap himself for being so dense. He slowly moved his arm to curl it around Darius’ shoulders. The boy sighed and drooped against him, hands dropping to his lap and stilled for the first time. Remus pulled him closer, and the Lego pieces dropped to the rug. He felt the boy take a deep, shuddering breath and then, sounding like a trapped animal, Darius began to cry.  
  
Remus’ heart broke. It was simultaneously the most painful and the most profound moment he’d ever experienced. _The best things come with the highest price._  
  
He gathered Darius in his arms and held him on his lap as the boy let loose his grief, so long held inside, so deep that Remus feared it.  
  
“I c-couldn’t save her!”  
  
He rocked slowly as he held the boy. “There was nothing you could have done, darling. Nothing,” Remus said softly. A fresh bout of crying ensued and then…  
  
“I should have done something!”  
  
Remus gently raised Darius’ tear-streaked face. “But you did!” he said earnestly. “You did exactly what your mother wanted you to do!” He wiped Darius cheeks, aware of his own tears leaving salty trails on his face.  
  
“You got away, Darius. And that’s what she wanted you to do: live. It was the last and best gift that you could give her. Do you understand?”  
  
Darius hiccupped but didn’t look away. He sniffed and nodded before dropping his head back down to Remus’ shoulder.  
  
No child should have to go through this, Remus thought, then added fiercely, more than that, no child of mine will have to go through this alone! He squeezed his eyes shut as he pressed his lips against the top of Darius’ hair. He imagined the boy’s mother, hoped that she knew Darius had escaped before she died.  
  
 _Thank you!_  
  
His tears seeped into the dark hair against his face.  _Thank you for creating this beautiful boy._  
  
Remus remembered the difficulties he’d gone through with Tonks, nearly a year ago now, over trying to start a family. He was so far away from that: nothing he could measure in physical distance, or even time. Experience was the thing that made him feel a world away from her self-indulgent behaviour.  
  
Darius had gone limp and quiet, succumbing to the pull of sleep at last. He gathered his exhausted boy in his arms and stood to put him to bed.  
  
 _No regrets._  
  
The last of pieces of the shell of his former life fell away, leaving him a freshly forged man.  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
“Lupin! Cease and desist with this molly-coddling at once!”  
  
“Shut it and eat your soup, Severus,” Remus calmly responded. He held the spoon near Severus’ mouth; the man could either swallow or risk dribbling down his shirtfront. His pride warred with both unacceptable options. Finally, simple hygiene won and he opened his mouth to the spoon.  
  
Remus suppressed a smile and continued to feed him the chicken soup. When no more remained in the bowl he asked, “Would you like some toast now?”  
  
Severus shook his head. “No, thank you. I believe I have had an elegant sufficiency.” He sighed and leant back against the pillows. “I am rather tired. I may just take Madame Granger-Weasly’s advice and rest for the day.”  
  
“Very sensible of you. I shan’t have to stupefy you after all,” Remus said with a smile. “I’m going to send Darius in. He has instructions to keep quiet and let you sleep if you need to. Is that okay with you?”  
  
“Yes. I need to speak to him, actually. Knowing the way he thinks, I’m quite sure that he is consumed with guilt,” Severus replied with a frown and a questioning look at Remus.  
  
“We talked last night. He’s had a breakthrough. Severus, it was amazing. But, despite all my assurances and agreeing that he mustn’t blame himself, I’m sure he needs to hear it from you.”  
  
Snape nodded. “Send him in then.”  
  
Remus took the empty bowl and left to find Darius. He strode past Donata on his way to the kitchen, his long legs neatly passing over the doorway barrier charms erected to keep her from straying too far. Her crawling speed seemed to have doubled overnight. He found Darius in the kitchen with the Lego blocks covering the entire surface of the table. The boy was intent on constructing a castle this time, his fingers deft but without the frantic pace of last night.  
  
“That’s extraordinary, Darius!” Remus exclaimed. His admiration was genuine. “If I’m not mistaken, that would appear to be a model of Hogwarts?”  
  
Darius looked up, shyly pleased as he said, “Yes. My mum went there.”  
  
“Did she indeed? Well, that’s something your dad and your mum and I have in common; we all attended Hogwarts – how wonderful!”  
  
Darius’ face creased into a rare grin.  
  
“Would you like to see Dad? He’s awake now, but still pretty tired.”  
  
Darius dropped his blocks and leapt up from his chair. “Yes!”  
  
“Alright then, but remember to keep the noise down and if he falls asleep, leave the room as quietly as you can,” Remus cautioned before waving him towards the bedroom.  
  
Darius ran a few steps before glancing back guiltily at Remus who gave him a pointed look. “Sorry,” the boy whispered, slowing and walking carefully towards the bedroom.  
  
“Good boy,” Remus said, hiding a smile behind a mug of tea.  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
After an hour Remus went to investigate, afraid that Severus might be exhausting himself amusing Darius.  
  
He found them both sound asleep, Severus’ arm cushioning Darius’ head as they both lay smooth-browed and unworried.  
  
Birds of a feather, Remus thought.  
  
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚  
  
“Oh, yesss.”  
  
The man’s hissing voice sent shivers up Remus’ spine. It was night, the children were asleep, and he  _not_  forgotten the silencing charm. He moved his mouth up and down Snape’s cock slowly. They’d both been getting a touch desperate for sex, but, since Severus was still a bit fatigued, Remus insisted he take a passive position. It was either that or abstain for another day, he’d stated, brooking no argument. Snape gave only token protest before acquiescing.  
  
“F-ffuck!”  
  
Severus was starting to pant now, and Remus could feel the throb under his tongue. Some remnant of marauder-mischief prompted him to take his mouth away.  
  
“Nnngh…”  
  
Severus whined as Remus rolled him onto his side, all parts of him limp save one. Remus moved to spoon against his back and poured some oil onto his fingers. He probed delicately at Snape’s cleft.  
  
“Damn it! More!”  
  
Severus shoved sharply backwards and Remus laughed softly as he inserted two fingers carefully inside.  
  
“Oh… please,” Severus breathed, sounding strained.  
  
“Do you want me to fuck you, Severus?”  
  
“Yes! Damn, fuck yes,” he replied with a growl.  
  
“I may be able to oblige to you,” Remus said as he nipped at Severus’ earlobe.  
  
“Aah, hell and damn – you’d fucking better!”  
  
Remus snorted at Severus’ evident frustration; it was just a bit wonderful to be the cause of such intense arousal, not to mention the bad language.  
  
He pressed into the man, groaning and feeling a bit like swearing himself. He was immersed, held, enveloped and surrounded. He stopped still, torturing himself and revelling in the clutch of Severus’ body as he held him close. Amazingly, the tension seemed to leech out of both of them; urgency forgotten for the moment, they found each other’s mouths and spent long minutes kissing deeply. Remus gave free reign to his left hand as it traversed the terrain of Snape’s torso, collarbone to nipple to hip, finally wrapping around his moist erection. His right hand was caught in Snape’s hair, supporting his head so that he could keep the man’s mouth within easy reach.  
  
They’d never made love with such connection, such lascivious indulgence. While Remus’ desire flared higher and higher, he wasn’t lost to his own passion; he remained sharply aware of Snape’s every intake of breath, every drop of sweat that appeared on his skin. He drove in and out of Snape’s body, rocking them both towards oblivion. Snape came suddenly, his breath wheezing in a prolonged gasp as he spent himself in Remus’ hand. Remus’ hips canted helplessly in response, like a human domino he allowed himself to fall in a heap next to his partner.  
  
For a while he was disconnected, not even aware of his own heartbeat. He floated in utter relaxation; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so completely sated and happy. Perhaps never?  
  
Snape’s soft snore brought him back to the wreck of their bed. He winced and slowly edged his soft cock out of Snape. The man did not even twitch. If he hadn’t the evidence of his snoring, Remus might have been tempted to call Hermione for reassurance. He grinned at the slumbering wizard before him, coated in spunk and dripping with sweat.  
  
“It’s a good look on you, Severus,” he whispered.  
  
Remus rolled off the bed and picked up his wand. “However, you might get chilled.” He waved a cleansing spell – very gently – over the man, then one for himself, and pulled up the bedclothes to cover Severus’ nakedness. Next, Remus slipped on his dressing gown and left the room to check on their children.  
  
Donata dozed peacefully in her cot, legs once more tucked under her body and rear end rampant. Remus smiled and tucked her blanket around her shoulders. Darius was tightly curled on his side and Remus ran a hand over his head gently.  
  
“It’s okay, little one,” he murmured. The boy sighed in his sleep and uncurled his legs slightly.  
  
Remus smiled. He finally had the life he really wanted.  
  
“Everything will be alright now.”  
  
≤≥≤≥≤≥≤≥≤≥≤≥≤≥≤≥≤≥≤≥≤≥≤≥≤≥

finite incantatum


End file.
